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‘WIKIPEDIA
Thomas Jaggar
Thomas Jaggar- Wikipedia
Thomas Augustus Jaggar Jr. (January 24, 1871 —
January 17, 1953) was an American voleanolo;
founded the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and
directed it from 1912 to 1940. The son of Thomas
Augustus Jaggar, Jaggar Jr, graduated with a PhD in
geology from Harvard University in 1897. In 1902, he
was one of the scientists that the United States sent to
investigate the volcanic disasters at La_Soufriére
volcano, St Vincent, and Mont Pelée, Martinique, which
he credited with inspiring him to make a life's work out
of geology. He became head of the department of
geology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in
1906.
Jaggar traveled to Hawaii in 1909, where he began
fundraising to establish the Hawaiian Voleano
Observatory (HVO). Jaggar became the first director of
HVO in 1912, and remained at HVO until 1940, when he
retired and became a research associate in geophysics at
the University of Hawaii. Jaggar married twice in his
life, and had two children. He died in 1953 in Honolulu,
Hawaii.
Biography
‘Thomas Augustus Jaggar Jr. was born on January 24,
1871, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Thomas
Augustus Jaggar and Anna Louisa (née Lawrence).l4]
Growing up, Jaggar Jr. hiked with his father, and in
1875 climbed Mount Vesuvius.!2] His father was the
Thomas Jaggar
Born January 24, 1871
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died January 17, 1953 (aged 81)
Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, U.S.
Education Harvard University (BA, MA and
PhD)
Occupation Geologist
‘Spouses
Helen Kline
(m, 1903; div. 1914)
Isabel Maydwel (m, 1917)
Children 2
Father Thomas Augustus Jaggar
first Bishop of Southern Ohio.!3) Jaggar Jr. graduated with a baccalaureate degree in 1893 and a
master's dé
ee in 1894, both in geology and both from Harvard University.!1II2l After studying
petrography and mineralogy at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and Heidelberg University,
he graduated with a Ph.D. in geology from Harvard in 1897. Jaggar was named an associate professor
of geology at Harvard in 1903, and, during summers, worked for the United States Geological Survey
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16‘124, 10.96 Pm Thomas Jaggar- Wikipedia
(USGS). He felt strongly that experimentation was the key to understanding earth science. Jaggar
constructed water flumes bedded by sand and gravel to understand stream erosion and melted rocks
in furnaces to study the behavior of magmas.!41
As he matured as a scientist, he began to feel the increasing need for field experimentation.) Jaggar
wrote:
Whereas small scale experiments in the laboratory helped me to think about the details of
nature, there remained the need to measure nature itself.{6]
In May 1902, he was one of the scientists sent from the United States to investigate the volcanic
disasters at Soufrigre and Mont Pelée./2] With the help of the U.S. Navy and the National Geographic
Society, Jaggar landed on the steaming shores of Martinique some 13 days after the disaster.!4] The
same year, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.|©]
In his autobiography published in 1956, Jaggar recounts,
It was hard to distinguish where the streets had been. Everything was buried under fallen
walls of cobblestone and pink plaster and tiles, including 20,000 bodies....As I look back
on the Martinique experience I know what a crucial point in my life it was....I realized that
the killing of thousands of persons by subterranean machinery totally unknown to
geologists...was worthy of a life work,(7]
On April 15, 1903,8! Jaggar married Helen Kline, with whom he had two children, Russell Kline and
Eliza Bowne.!9! The couple divorced in 1914.!"°! In 1906 he became head of Massachusetts Institute of
‘Technology's department of geology.) The next 10 years of Jaggar's life brought expeditions to the
scenes of great earthquakes and eruptions in Italy, the Aleutians, Central America, and Japan. With
each trip, Jaggar became increasingly concerned that his field studies were but brief, inadequate
snapshots of long-term, dynamic, earth processes. After the 1908 Messina earthquake killed 125,000
people near Mount Etna in Italy, Jaggar declared that "something must be done" to support
systematic, ongoing studies of volcanic and seismic activity. He traveled to Hawaii in 1909 at his own
expense, and determined that Kilauea was to be the home of the first American voleano
observatory.!41 He would work on that project the rest of his life.!2]
He married co-worker Isabel Maydwell, a widowed schoolteacher from California, in 1917.23]
Jagger established a volcano monitoring station at Mount Lassen and another two on the Aleutian
Islands, though the Mount Lassen station did not survive the Great Depression.!"405] To explore
inaccessible Aleutian Islands beaches, Jaggar designed amphibious vehicles which would form the
basis of beach landing craft used by the United States military in World War II, an achievement for
which he received the Franklin L. Burr Prize from the National Geographic Society in 1945.14] after
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his retirement from the Hawaiian Voleano Observatory (HVO) in 1940, Jaggar remained active at the
University of Hawaii, where he was a research associate in geophysics. He died in Honolulu on
January 17, 1953, at age 81.12!
Hawaiian Volcano Observatory
After a lecture on his Martinique expedition in Honolulu,
Jaggar was approached by Lorrin A. Thurston, a prominent
Honolulu lawyer and businessman. Like Jaggar, Thurston
believed that Kilauea was a prime site for a permanent
voleano observatory and inquired of Jaggar, "Is it then a
question of money?" Within a year of their conversation,
‘Thurston and other businessmen raised financial backing for eo
the Hawaii Voleano Research Association (HVRA). A small ed
observing station was set up on the rim of Halema‘uma‘u
crater (a pit crater inside Kilauea's summit caldera)./4! In
July 1909, Jaggar received funding of $25,000 (equivalent to
$848,000 in 2023)!6) from the Whitney Estate through the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology for use in
construction of the HVO; funding also came the HVRA and the people of Hilo. In 1912, construction
of the HVO began:(4! in February, prisoners sentenced to a term of hard labor by the Territory of
Hawaii dug through Kilauea ash and pumice to a thick layer of pahoehoe lava on which to place
concrete piers where seismometers would be mounted.!27! In spring of that year, Jaggar left MIT to
become the first director of the HVO.21
The Jaggar Museum, closed in 2018 due
to structural damage
During his early years as director, Jaggar struggled to obtain private endowments with the hope of
eventually securing sponsorship by the federal government.) At one point, Jaggar raised pigs to fund
the HVO.|2] In 1919, Jaggar convinced the National Weather Service to provide funding for the HVO.
The USGS took over its operation in 1924, with the exception of a brief hiatus during the Great
Depression when HVO was run by the National Park Service.[4] The USGS established a Section of
Volcanology in 1926, with Jaggar named as its first chief.l2)
In 1922, he suggested using Kilauea's heat for geothermal energy
Volcano power for human use is a possibility, for heat is power, and voleanoes generate
heat. ... Cracks near Halemaumau have opened from time to time which sometimes get
hotter and hotter until they become glowing furnaces, emitting apparently merely hot air.
Ifa boring will start such a furnace, then twenty holes at such a place will run a respectable
engine.8)
On February 3, 1923, when an 8.4-magnitude earthquake hit the southeastern coast of the Kamchatka
Peninsula,""9) Jaggar tried to warn the Hilo harbormaster about the possibility that a tsunami could
have been generated. Jaggar’s warning was not taken seriously and one fisherman was killed when the
tsunami hit, with damage estimated at $1.5 million. According to authors Boris W. Levin and Mikhail
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Nosoy, this was the first tsunami warning in the “far field."!2°l In 1935, Jagger called on the United
States Army to bomb lava flow that would soon reach the headwaters of the Wailuku River, which
supplied water for the town of Hilo. His hope was that the lava tubes or channels could be destroyed,
thereby robbing the advancing flow while feeding another flow that would re-cover the same area. The
flow was bombed on December 27, and lava stopped flowing during the night or early morning of
January 2, 1936. According to the United vey, "Whether or not the bombing
stopped the 1935 Mauna Loa lava flow remain: ial topic today."[21!
Jaggar remained director of HVO until 1940. The Thomas A. Jaggar Museum in Hawaii Voleanoes
National Park is named for him.22! In 2018, the museum closed when earthquakes associated with
[24] As of 2019, many of the museum's artifacts are in
structure.
the eruption damaged its
storage.[25]
References
1. John William Siddall, ed, (1917). Men of Hawaii: Being a Biographical Reference Library,
Complete and Authentic, of the Men of Note and Substantial Achievement in the Hawaiian Islands
(https://books.google.com/books?id=8YUDAAAAYAA\). Vol. 1. Honolulu Star-Bulletin. p. 151
2. Peterson, Frank L. (2000). "Jaggar, Thomas Augustus, Jr" (https://www.anb.org/view/10.1093/anb/
9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-1300851). American National Biography.
doi:10.1093/anb/9780198606697 article. 1300851 (htlps://doi.org/10.1093%2Fanb%2F978019860
6697 arlicle. 1300851). ISBN 978-0-19-860669-7
3. Bush, Thomas Lloyd (1937). "The Diocese of Southern Ohio and Its Bishop", Historical Magazine
of the Protestant Episcopal Church. 6 (3): 308-315. JSTOR 42968282 (https://wwwjstor.org/stabl
£/42968282).
4. ®@ This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: "Volcano Watch —
Thomas Jaggar, HVO" (https://www.usgs.gov/center-news/volcano-watch-thomas-jaggar-hvo).
USGS. March 20, 1997. Retrieved November 20, 2021.
5, Jaggar Jr. 1956, p. 55
6. "Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter J" (https://web.archive.org/web/20120330172156/http://w
ww.amacad. org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterJ pdf) (PDF). American Academy of Arts
and Sciences. p. 302. Archived from the original (http:/Awww.amacad. org/publications/BookofMem
bers/ChapterJ.pdf) (PDF) on March 30, 2012. Retrieved April 22, 2011.
7. Jaggar Jr. 1956, pp. 57, 62
8. The Harvard Graduates' Magazine (https:/Ibooks.google.com/books?id=zDJYAAAAYAAJ)
Harvard Graduates’ Magazine Association. 1903. p. 643.
9. Dvorak 2015, pp. 74, 147
10. Dvorak 2015, p. 170
11. John Dvorak (2011). "The origin of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory" (https://archive.today/2013
0224024538/http://ptonline.aip.org/journalsidoc/PHTOAD-ft/vol_64/iss_5/32_1.shtml). Physics
Today. 64 (5): 32-37. Bibcode:2011PhT....64e..32D (htips://ui.adsabs harvard.edu/abs/2011PhT....
64e..32D). doi:10.1063/1 3592003 (https:/idoi.org/10.1063%2F1.3592003). Archived from the
original (http://ptonline.aip.org/journalsidoc/PHTOAD-ftvol_64/iss_5/32_1.shtml) on February 24,
2013.
12. "Thomas Jaggar Returns to the Whitney Vault” (https://web.archive.org/web/20120910044819/htt
pil/hvo.wr.usgs. govivolcanowatch/archive/2006/06_06_01.htmi). USGS Volcano Watch. 2006.
Archived from the original (https://hvo.wr.usgs. gov/volcanowatch/2006/06_06_01.html) on
September 10, 2012. Retrieved June 22, 2009.
bitpsen.wikipedia.orgwik/Thomas_Jaggar
416‘124, 10.96 Pm Thomas Jaggar- Wikipedia
13. Dvorak 2015, pp. 187-189
14. "Volcano Watch — He's back! Thomas Jaggar returns to the Whitney Vault” (https://www-usgs.go
vicenter-news/volcano-watch-hes-back-thomas-jaggar-returns-whitney-vault). USGS. June 1,
2006. Retrieved November 22, 2021
15. "Volcano Watch — Ruy Finch, HVO's Second Director, Went to the Core of Volcanology and
Apple-Growing” (https://www.usgs.gov/center-news/volcano-watch-ruy-finch-hvos-second-director
-went-core-volcanology-and-apple-growing). USGS. May 3, 2012. Retrieved November 23, 2021.
16. 1634-1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for
Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda
(https:/www.americanantiquarian.org/proceedings/44525121 pdf) (PDF). American Antiquarian
Society. 1700-1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price
Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (https:/;www.am
ericanantiquarian.org/proceedings/44517778 pdf) (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800-
present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price index (estimate) 1800—" (https://
www.minneapolisfed.org/about-us/monetary-policy/infiation-calculator/consumer-price -index-1800
-). Retrieved February 29, 2024.
17. Apple 1987, p. 1619
18. Jaggard Jr., Thomas Augustus (1922). "The Fire Pit of Kilaueau” (https://books.google.com/book
s7id=01ZBAQAAMAAJ&q=Volcano+ power+for+humantusetis+a+possibility&pg=PA357), The
Mid-Pacific Magazine. Vol. 23, no. 4. p. 357.
19. "M 8.4 — 121 km ESE of Milkovo, Russia (https://earthquake.usgs.goviearthquakes/eventpagelis
cgem911274/executivettgeneral_summary). United States Geological Survey. Retrieved
November 21, 2021.
20. Levin, Boris W.; Nosoy, Mikhail (2015). Physics of Tsunamis (https://books. google.com/books?i
CADOCgAAQBAJ). Vol. 2. Springer, p. 17. ISBN 978-3-319-24037-4,
21. @ This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: "Volcano Watch —
Did aerial bombing stop the 1935 Mauna Loa lava flow?" (https://www.usgs.govinews/volcano-wat
ch-did-aerial-bombing-stop-1935-mauna-loa-lava-flow). USGS. November 30, 2017. Retrieved
March 8, 2022
22. "Jaggar Museum" (https://web.archive.org/web/20130709172229/http://www.nps.gov/havo/planyo
urvisil/craterrimtour_jaggar.htm). National Park Service. Archived from the original (http:/Avww.np
s.govihavo/planyourvisit/craterrimtour_jaggar.htm) on July 9, 2013. Retrieved June 20, 2009.
23. Wu, Nina (September 6, 2018). "Severely Damaged Jaggar Museum may have to Relocate" (http
s://www.staradvertiser.com/2018/09/05/breaking-news/severely-damaged-jaggar-museum-may-ha
ve-to-relocate/). Honolulu Star-Advertiser.
24. "Jaggar Museum" (https://www.nps.gov/havollearn/managementjaggar-museum.htm). National
Park Service. Retrieved November 21, 2021
25. Hitt, Christine (January 6, 2019). "Hawaii Island Isn't Itself Anymore. Lava and Quakes have
Transformed it in Interesting Ways" (https://www.latimes.com/travel/la-tr-hawaii-big-island-post-vol
cano-20190106-story.htmi). Los Angeles Times.
Cited works
* Apple, Russell A. (1987). "Thomas A. Jaggar, Jr., and the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory" (https://
pubs.usgs.gov/pp/1987/1350/pdf/chapters/pp1350_ch61.pdf) (PDF). In Decker, Robert W.; Wright,
Thomas L.; Stauffer, Peter H. (eds.). Volcanism in Hawail: Papers to Commemorate the 75th
Anniversary of the Founding of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. USGS. pp. 1619-1644.
= Dvorak, John (2015). The Last Volcano. Pegasus Books. ISBN 978-1-60598-921-1.
bitpsen.wikipedia.orgwik/Thomas_Jaggar 516‘1:24, 10:36 PM Thomas Jaggar- Wikipedia
= Jaggar Jr., Thomas Augustus (1956). My Experiments with Volcanoes. Hawaiian Volcano
Research Association.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/wlindex.php?title=Thomas_JaggarSoldid= 1213697264"
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