Thorne Lay

Thorne Lay is a Professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he has been affiliated since 1990. Previously, he held a faculty position at the University of Michigan. He earned his Ph.D. in Geophysics from the California Institute of Technology in 1983.

His research centers on geophysics and seismology, with emphases on:

• Earthquake dynamics (megathrust events, subduction zones)
• Deep Earth structure (core-mantle boundary, D″ layer)
• Seismic wave propagation (attenuation, waveform analysis)
• Nuclear test detection (yield estimation, source characterization)

Publications (2010–2022) demonstrate sustained focus on seismic inversions for earthquake and explosion sources, mantle discontinuities, and tectonic risk assessment. Methodologically, his work integrates waveform modeling, finite-difference simulations, and novel stacking techniques.