“One of the reasons I chose to study geophysics was that I wanted to contribute to being able to predict earthquakes because it would help people,” says Martha Savage, a professor of Geophysics at Te Herenga Waka.
In 2020, she was awarded the New Zealand Association of Scientists’ highest honour, the Marsden Medal, for her research in the fields of seismology, plate tectonics, and volcanology, as well as her distinguished record of service to New Zealand and the global scientific community.
Born and raised in the United States, Martha started her academic career studying physics for her undergraduate degree, discovering geology in her final year after getting to know some geologists. “I had always done a lot of hiking during the summers, and enjoyed the outdoors,” she says. “In my last year, I took a geology class and got excited about it so decided to do more in this field.”
But first she put off her entry into a PhD programme to work at the South Pole for a year, becoming only the second woman to winter-over there. “I was a technician studying upper atmosphere problems, gathering data on cosmic rays arriving on Earth.”
Martha met her now husband Mike at the South Pole, and made her first connections with New Zealand, transiting through the country on her way to and from the United States.
She completed her PhD programme at University of Wisconsin–Madison and went on to work in Reno, Nevada, running a seismic network and studying how seismic wave speeds vary with the direction they travel in, and how those speeds depend on tectonic forces.
Both Martha and her husband were keen to find a way to return to New Zealand, and Martha secured funding to attend a conference here in 1995. “I came here to schmooze and find work!” she says. “I was very lucky to connect with people who told me about a job, and I was able to come here with my family.”
Martha has found most professional satisfaction from her work studying the changes in seismic properties with time.
The massive 2004 Boxing Day earthquake and tsunami in Sumatra deeply affected Martha. “Over 250,000 people died because they had no warning system in place in the Indian Ocean,” she says. “Those looking at the Pacific warning system did notice something, but had no communications channels set up to tell people in the Indian Ocean.
“It was partly political and partly getting the data to people, but I felt we needed to do more to use our scientific understanding to help people. I decided to use my understanding of the variation of wave speed with direction to see how those speeds changed with time and whether those changes could be used to monitor magmatic movement. The hope is that those changes could be used to predict eruptions.
“We are still looking at changes in Earth’s properties over time, but I have added to my main programme of looking at volcanic activity and earthquakes to looking at the relation between ‘regular’ and ‘slow’ earthquakes,” says Martha. “I’m now also working with tsunami modellers, trying to use my knowledge to develop better hazard calculations.”
She is also working with other seismologists to test early-warning systems to help predict shaking in earthquakes. “Once an earthquake starts, some seismic stations record the waves and broadcast to other stations to give a few seconds of warning before the strong shaking starts elsewhere. Japan is leading the world in these kinds of studies, and we’re trying to test their methods using the Geonet network in New Zealand.”
“The idea that we can see changes in the earth’s properties over time—from volcanoes and slow-slip quakes—is most rewarding. Seismic waves change speeds as they move in different directions. That tells us that in the top crust, tiny cracks in the rocks beneath us are aligning in different ways because they are being pushed in different directions. These small cracks are measurements of the stresses that cause earthquakes and they respond to magmatic movement.”
While stresses underground have preoccupied much of Martha’s working life, stress of another sort has deeply affected her personal life.
In 2017, her son Kelly died after spending 10 days tied to a hospital bed in Japan, following a severe psychotic episode related to his bipolar disorder. Since then, Martha has been working to get support for changes in mental health systems around the world.
“When I started studying for my PhD, I had a psychotic break. Before my son died, I hadn’t told anyone about my episode,” she says. “I now talk about it because I want people to know you can have mental health episodes and live with them and recover.
“I am involved with the World Psychiatric Association on committees for family carers and for limiting coercion, particularly restraints but also isolation and solitary confinement, which are really harmful for patients.
“I am a scientist. I know how to deal with other scientists, and I can talk to psychiatrists without being intimidated by them. I think most of them are trying to do the right thing—even the ones in Japan. They just don’t know what else to do,” she says.
“Getting the message out and trying to support them to change is helpful.”