2022年4月29日，美籍华人科学家、国际著名地球物理学家、哥伦比亚大学教授、原奥尔德里奇应用地球物理实验室主任，郭宗汾先生在美国纽约去世，享年100岁。

图 1985年郭宗汾教授（右二）与重力组在白家疃北京国家地球观象台山洞调研

上世纪八十年代，由中国地震局地球物理研究所顾功叙教授和美国哥伦比亚大学郭宗汾（John T.Kuo）教授倡导的中美合作项目“局部重力场变化与地震发生的关系”立项。其研究宗旨是在京津唐张地区开展时变重力观测，探索与地震发生有关的重力变化现象和机理，该工作为后来我国建立大陆地震时变重力监测网络系统奠定了研究基础。

1976年唐山大地震后，时任美国哥伦比亚大学拉蒙特-多尔蒂地质观象台的郭宗汾教授心系祖国，他多方筹集资金并带着当时最先进的新型高精度重力仪器和成套设备来到我国华北地区，建立了8个具有连续观测能力的重力台站和流动观重力重复观测网，通过二十多年的研究获得了京津唐张地区与地震发生有关的重力变化过程具有清晰的、一致的图像。该项目成果也为研究局部重力场变化与地震之间关系的提供了宝贵的地球物理学依据。

Cherish the memory of Professor John T. Kuo

April 29, 2022, Professor John T. Kuo, a Chinese American scientist, a world-famous geophysicist, a great professor at the Columbia University, and the former director of the Aldridge Laboratory of Applied Geophysics, passed away in New York, USA, at the age of 100.

We lost Professor John T. Kuo only days ago, but we have missed him for a long time. In the 1980s, the Sino-US cooperative project of "Relationship between local gravity field variation and earthquakes" was initiated by Professor John T. Kuo and Professor Gongxu Gu from Institute of Geophysics, China Earthquake Administration. The purpose of the project is to carry out time-varying gravity observations in Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan-Zhangjiakou area, and to explore the mechanism of gravity variations related to the occurrence of earthquakes. This project laid the research foundations for the establishment of continental earthquake time-varying gravity monitoring network system in China.

After the Tangshan earthquake in 1976, Professor John T. Kuo, who was working at the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory at the Columbia University, had shown his love towards the motherland. He raised funds from various sources and bought lots of most advanced new high-precision gravity instruments in the world at that time for China, establishing 8 gravity stations with continuous monitoring capabilities and a mobile gravity repeated observation network system in the North China. He obtained clear and consistent images showing the gravity variation is related to the earthquake occurrence in Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan-Zhangjiakou area, based on more than 20 years of research. The results of this project also provide valuable geophysical bases for studying the relationship between local gravity field variation and earthquakes.

（重力与地壳形变研究室 供稿）