Nationality Iranian American | Name Manuel Berberian | |
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Ethnicity Armenian ethnic-religious minority Occupation Earthquake seismology, Geophysics, Active tectonics, Archaeoseismology, environmental geoscience, Professor emeritus Website | ||
Manuel Berberian is an Iranian-Armenian earth scientist, specializing in earthquake seismology, active faulting and folding, active tectonics, continental tectonics, historical seismicity, archaeoseismicity, earthquake hazard minimization, geological mapping, and environmental science and engineering.
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Biography
Manuel Berberian was born on October 27, 1945 into an immigrant Armenian family in Tehran, Iran, who had nearly perished in the Armenian Genocide.
He received his Ph.D. degree in geophysics/earth Science, majoring in earthquake seismology and active tectonics from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, in June 1981. He is the second ever Iranian and the first Armenian receiving a Ph.D. degree in Earth Sciences from the University of Cambridge, UK.
He is the founder of the Tectonics and Seismotectonics Research studies in Iran and established the Research Department for the first time in the country at the newly established Geological Survey of Iran by the United Nations in 1972. Since 1971 he has been engaged in scholarly research and taught at the University of Tehran, University of Tarbiat Modarres, Tehran, and has been teaching at the Ocean County College, USA.
Since 1990 together with his wife and son are living in the United States of America.
Honors
2013: The First Iranian and First Armenian Earth Scientist ever honored by the Geological Society of America (GSA) during its 125th Anniversary Annual Conference Special Meeting Dedicated to his over 40-yr of research and contribution to the world Earth Science at Denver, Colorado, USA, in October 2013, Sessions 214 & 291, T188: Tethyan Evolution and Seismotectonics of Southwest Asia (GSA Structural Geology and Tectonics Division; GSA Quaternary Geology & Geomorphology Division; GSA Mineralogy, Geochemistry, Petrology, & Volcanology Division).
2008: A new fossil species of Chondrichthyes (jawed fish) Manberodus fortis gen. nov. (genus: Manberodus fortis, Family: Aztecondotidae, Order: Omalodontiformes) with age range of 383.7 to 382.4 Ma (Early Frasnian; Late Devonian) was discovered and named in honor of Dr. Manuel Berberian in recognition of his contribution to the tectonic evolution of the Iranian Plateau.