Inge Lehmann. Who was the woman who discovered the Earth’s core? – Gazeta.pl

Inge Lehmann was born in Copenhagen on May 13, 1888. Her father was an experimental psychologist Alfred Lehmann. The atmosphere in the home and education in a progressive coeducational school, Hanna Adler (daughter of Niels Bohr) shaped her intellectually.

She studied among others mathematics at the University of Copenhagen and the University of Cambridge. She also worked in insurance. When he was the surveyor’s assistant Niels Erik Nørlund interested in seismology.

Before becoming head of the department of seismology at the Institut Geodaetisk led by Nørlund, organized geological observatories in Denmark and Greenland.

In 1936 . he presented the work in which on the basis of seismic waves showed that the center of the Earth consists of two parts: a solid inner core and liquid outer core. Border zone that separates them is called Lehmann discontinuity. The results of her research have grown rapidly in those times that other geologists and seismologists.

The work of Lehmann hampered Nazi occupation. After 1953. She worked in the United States and participated in research on the Earth’s crust and mantle of the Earth, revealing another seismic discontinuity.

Dane awarded many prestigious awards. Lehmann received, among others, Gordon Wood Award, Emil Wiechert Medal, Gold Medal of the Danish Royal Society of Science and Letters, Tage Brandt Rejselegat (twice), William Bowie Medal (the first woman), Medal of the Seismological Society of America. She received two honorary doctorates – Columbia University and the University of Copenhagen.

Inge Lehmann died on 21 February 1993. At the age of 104 years.