# Prof. Heiner Igel

**Source**: https://www.geo.lmu.de/en/faculty-for-geosciences/persons/contact-page/heiner-igel-186fe287.html
**Parent**: https://www.geo.lmu.de/en/commissions/

Professor of Geophysics and Seismology

**Office address:**

Theresienstraße 41

Room C 440

80333
Munich

[Room finder](https://www.lmu.de/raumfinder/#/building/bw1003/map?room=100104040_)

[Send an email](mailto:heiner.igel@geophysik.uni-muenchen.de)

[+49 89 2180 4204](tel:+498921804204)

[Lectures](https://lsf.verwaltung.uni-muenchen.de/qisserver/rds?state=verpublish&status=init&vmfile=no&moduleCall=webInfo&publishConfFile=webInfoPerson&publishSubDir=personal&keep=y&purge=y&personal.pid=38201 "LSF - Link opens in a new window")

[Thesis Topic Selection](https://www.geo.lmu.de/geoumwelt/en/studies/bachelors-and-masters-projects/)

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[Bio](#accordionItem-null-0)

I began studying geophysics at the Technische Hochschule Karlsruhe (now KIT) in 1982. Before getting my Diploma degree I spent two years in Edinburgh working as a research student with Prof. Stuart Crampin. From 1990-1993 was supervised by Profs Albert Tarantola and Peter Mora at the Institut de Physique du Globe in my PhD project on seismic modelling and inversion. We were lucky to have access to one of the first parallel machines, the Connection Machine CM-2. From 1994-1999 I was a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Theoretical Geophysics at the University of Cambridge, UK, working primarily on global wave propagation. Since 1999 I am a professor of seismology at LMU.\

[CV Heiner Igel (PDF, 180 KB)](https://cms-cdn.lmu.de/media/20-geowissenschaften/department-geoumwelt/downloads/cvs/cv_igelheiner.pdf "PDF-Link opens in a new window")\

[Roles](#accordionItem-null-1)

- **1999** Editor PEPI Special Issue on Computational Seismology Since
- **1999** Reviewer for National Science Funding for Germany, Switzerland, USA, France, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia.
- **2004-2024** Coordinator of EU-funded training networks SPICE and QUEST, Co-PI SPIN
- **Since 2007** Co-initiator and Chair of International Working Group of Rotational Seismology, main organizer of all 6 international workshops
- **2008-2015** Member editorial board Journal of Seismology
- **2009, 2012, 2021** Editor Special Issues on Rotational Seismology (BSSA, JSeis, Sensors)
- **Since 2010** Panel Member Evaluation European Fellowships, ERC Grants
- **Since 2010** Science Officer in the Seismology Division EGU
- **2010-2016** Topical editor Solid Earth
- **Since 2011** Annual SKIENCE winterschool (www.skience.de) in seismology
- **2015** Vice-Chair Evaluation Panel European Training Networks
- **2015** Initiation of online Jupyter notebooks www.seismo-live.org
- **2023** EarthScope Integration & Innovation Advisory Committee
- **2025** AGU Gutenberg Lecture Committee

[Awards](#accordionItem-null-2)

- **1992** Best student paper award, International Workshop on Seismic Anisotropy, Banff, 1992
- **1994** Fellowship by the Isaac Newton Trust, Cambridge
- **1996** Visiting Fellow ANU Canberra
- **1998** Heisenberg Fellowship (German National Science Foundation)
- **2008/2022/2023** Cecil-and-Ida Green Fellow SCRIPPS
- **2008** Visiting Professor Los Alamos National Laboratory
- **2013** Advanced Grant European Research Council
- **Since 2013** Fellow of the Center of Advanced Studies (LMU Munich)
- **2016** Elected full member of the German National Academy of Sciences
- **2021/2022** Visiting Professor IPG Paris
- **2025** AGU Fellow

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[Press](#accordionItem-null-3)

- [Geophysik – Ein einzigartiges Instrument (innoreports, 20 July 2020)](https://www.innovations-report.de/landwirtschaft-umwelt/geowissenschaften/geophysik-ein-einzigartiges-instrument/ "Link opens in a new window")
- [Buried lasers will sense Earth's spin and quakes doing the twist (Science Magazine on YouTube, 20.04.2017)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXYV6wNdZm8&t=44s "Link opens in a new window")
- [Ringlaser misst Erdrotation (Welt der Physik, 20.07.2020)](https://www.weltderphysik.de/gebiet/erde/nachrichten/2020/ringlaser-misst-erdrotation/ "Link opens in a new window")
- [Laser misst Rotation der Erde (Scinexx - das Wissensmagazin, 27. Juli 2020)](https://www.scinexx.de/news/geowissen/laser-misst-rotation-der-erde/ "Link opens in a new window")
- [Wachsende Gefahr in Bayern: Starkregen kann Erdbeben verursachen (Münchner Merkur, 02.08.2024)](https://www.merkur.de/bayern/umwelt-wachsende-gefahr-in-bayern-starkregen-kann-erdbeben-verursachen-wetter-92853378.html "Link opens in a new window")\
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- [Seismo-live auf github](https://seismo-live.github.io/ "Link opens in a new window")
- [Coursera](https://www.coursera.org/learn/computers-waves-simulations "Link opens in a new window")
- [GoogleScholar](https://scholar.google.de/citations?user=ZmpYGs0AAAAJ&hl=de&oi=ao "Link opens in a new window")

## Research

I am interested in all aspects of seismic waves from observing then on Earth, in the oceans, and on planets; how to use ground motions to infer the structure of the interior or the dynamics of seismic sources; how to accurately simulate seismic wave propagation to match observations. Currently my main research interest is how to understand complete ground motion including rotational motions, how to observe them accurately, and how to use the combined observations (6 DoF) with seismometers to solve science problems.\

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Graphical illustration of the ROMY ring laser installed in Fürstenfeldbruck (from Hand) | © Science, 2017

### **Rotational Seismology**

We are interested in integrating all aspects of rotational ground motion into Earth System Monitoring. This applies to the observation of earthquakes, the natural and induced seismic background noise, the potential of using these observations in planetary seismology, volcanology, oceanography, and borehole geophysics. While using ring lasers at our Observatory Fürstenfeldbruck and at the Fundamentalstation Wettzell we also push the development of portable rotation sensing systems and make use of our pool of rotations sensors such as BlueSeis-3A and lower-resolution 6-component inertial measurement units (IMU). We also see applications in structural health monitoring.

##### **Running projects**

- ERC Advanced ROMY Project (2014-2020), [www.-romy-erc.eu](http://www.-romy-erc.eu/ "Link opens in a new window"), European Research Council
- GIOTTO Project (2020-2023), BMFTR Germany, [https://giotto.geophysik.uni-muenchen.de/index.html](https://giotto.geophysik.uni-muenchen.de/index.html "Link opens in a new window"),
- The SPIN Doctoral Training Network (2020-2025), EU, [www.spin-itn.eu](http://www.spin-itn.eu/ "Link opens in a new window")
- The PIONEERS Project (2019-2024), EU, https://pioneers.oma.be/

*Tang, L***., Igel, H**., Montagner, J.-P., & Vernon, F. (2024). **Seismic anisotropy from 6C ground motions of ambient seismic noise.** *Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth*, 129, e2024JB028959. [https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JB028959](https://doi.org/10.1029/2024JB028959 "Link opens in a new window")\
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*Tang, L.,* **Igel, H**., & Montagner, J.-P. (2023). **Anisotropy and deformation processes in Southern California from rotational observations.** *Geophysical Research Letters*, 50, e2023GL105970. [https://doi.org/10.1029/2023GL105970](https://doi.org/10.1029/2023GL105970 "Link opens in a new window")\
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**Igel, H**., K.U. Schreiber, *A. Gebauer*, *F. Bernauer*, S. Egdorf, *A. Simonelli*, *C.-J. Lin*, J. Wassermann, *S. Donner, C. Hadziioannou*, *S. Yuan*, *A. Brotzer*, J. Kodet, T. Tanimoto, U. Hugentobler, and J.-P.R. Wells. **Romy: A multicomponent ring laser for geodesy and geophysics.** Geophysical Journal International, Volume 225, Issue 1, April 2021, Pages 684–698, [https://doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggaa614](https://doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggaa614 "Link opens in a new window")\
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Bernauer, F., Behnen, K., Wassermann, J., Egdorf, S., Igel, H., Donner, S., Stammler, K., Hoffmann, M., Edme, P., Sollberger, D., Schmelzbach, C., Robertsson, J., Paitz, P., Igel, J., Smolinski, K., Fichtner, A., Rossi, Y., Izgi, G., Vollmer, D., ... Brokesova, J. (2021). **Rotation, Strain, and Translation Sensors Performance Tests with Active Seismic Sources.** *Sensors*, *21*(1), 264. [https://doi.org/10.3390/s21010264](https://doi.org/10.3390/s21010264 "Link opens in a new window")

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Illustration of peak ground motion from a simulation of the 2015 M7.8 Gorkha Earthquake in the Kathmandu Basin | © Zihua Niu

### Computational Seismology

We continue to push seismic simulation technology to become ever more realistic. This involves extending rheologies to nonlinear behavior and exploring the effects on ground motion and the dynamics of earthquake rupture. Furthermore we aim at making (expensive) supercomputer wavefield simulations accessible and usable by the science community.

##### **Projects**

- EU Training network SPIN (2020-2025), [www.spin-itn.eu](http://www.spin-itn.eu/ "Link opens in a new window"), EU
- NFDI4Earth, Lighthouse Use Case (2026-2029), tbc, DFG

Niu, Z., Gabriel, A.-A., Seelinger, L., & Igel, H. (2024). **Modeling and quantifying parameter uncertainty of co-seismic non-classical nonlinearity in rocks.** *Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth*, 129, e2023JB027149. [https://doi.org/10.1029/2023JB027149](https://doi.org/10.1029/2023JB027149 "Link opens in a new window") \
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Niu, Z., Gabriel, A.-A., Wolf, S., Ulrich, T., Lyakhovsky, V., & Igel, H. (2025). **A discontinuous Galerkin method for simulating 3D seismic wave propagation in nonlinear rock models: Verification and application to the M*w* 7.8 2015 Gorkha, Nepal Earthquake.** *Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth*, 130, e2025JB031378. [https://doi.org/10.1029/2025JB031378](https://doi.org/10.1029/2025JB031378 "Link opens in a new window")

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Seismic Exploration for Future Space Missions (illustration from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvpKsUklCDs) | © DRL KN Swarm Systems

### Planetary seismology

How does the ground move on planetary objects like the moon, Mars, asteroids, comets? What are good instrumentation strategies to characterize these motions? What sensor do we need? How can we design experiment in these challenging environments. These questions we address in some of our projects.

##### **Running projects**

- NEPOS Project, 2022-2025, DFG, [https://www.nepos-project.com/](https://www.nepos-project.com/ "Link opens in a new window")
- PIONEERS Project, 2020-2024, EU, [https://pioneers.oma.be/](https://pioneers.oma.be/ "Link opens in a new window")

Bernauer, F. R.F. Garcia, N. Murdoch, V. Dehant, D. Sollberger, C. Schmelzbach, S. St¨ahler, J. Wassermann, H. Igel, A. Cadu, D. Mimoun, B. Ritter, V. Filice, ¨ O. Karatekin, L. Ferraioli, J.O.A. Robertsson, D. Giardini, G. Lecamp, F. Guattari, J.-J. Bonnefois, and S. de Raucourt. **Exploring planets and asteroids with 6dof sensors: Utopia and realism.** *Earth Planets Space* **72**, 191 (2020). [https://doi.org/10.1186/s40623-020-01333-9](https://doi.org/10.1186/s40623-020-01333-9 "Link opens in a new window")\
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Keil, S., Igel, H., Schimmel, M., Lindner, F., & Bernauer, F. (2024). **Investigating subsurface properties of the shallow lunar crust using seismic interferometry on synthetic and recorded data.** *Earth and Space Science*, 11, e2024EA003742. [https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EA003742](https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EA003742 "Link opens in a new window") \
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Joshi, R., Knapmeyer-Endrun, B., Mosegaard, K., Igel, H., & Christensen, U. R. (2021). **Joint inversion of receiver functions and apparent incidence angles for sparse seismic data.** *Earth and Space Science*, 8, e2021EA001733. [https://doi.org/10.1029/2021EA001733](https://doi.org/10.1029/2021EA001733 "Link opens in a new window")

## Publications