physics

Kuo-Fong Ma

Kuo-Fong Ma is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Kuo-Fong Ma rather than just read about it. In short: Kuo-Fong Ma (Chinese: 馬國鳳; pinyin: Mǎ Guó Fèng, born 1963) is a Taiwanese seismologist. She is primarily known for research conducted on the Chelungpu Fault, the cause of one of the most devastating earthquakes in Taiwan, the 1999 Jiji earthquake.

Key takeaways

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Reproduce the core statement of Kuo-Fong Ma from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Kuo-Fong Ma (Chinese: 馬國鳳; pinyin: Mǎ Guó Fèng, born 1963) is a Taiwanese seismologist. She is primarily known for research conducted on the Chelungpu Fault, the cause of one of the most devastating earthquakes in Taiwan, the 1999 Jiji earthquake.

Early life and education Ma was born in 1963 at Su'ao, Taiwan. She graduated from National Central University in 1985 and received her master's degree in oceanography in 1987 from National Taiwan University. She then completed doctoral studies in the United States, earning her Ph.D. in seismology from the California Institute of Technology in 1993.

Career She is currently the Chief Scientist of the Taiwan Earthquake Research Center, a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Institute of Earth Sciences, Academia Sinica, a professor in the Earth Sciences Department of National Central University, and the founder and Director of the Earthquake- Disaster & Risk Evaluation and Risk Management (E-DREaM) Center. She is also a member of the Global Earthquake Model. Ma was one of the Ten Outstanding Young Women of Republic of China of the year 2000 and received the Academic Award of Ministry of Education in 2007. In 2011, she was awarded a Taiwan Outstanding Women in Science (TOWIS) prize and the annual science prize from the Chien-Shiung Wu Education Foundation. In 2011, Ma was awarded the Outstanding Award of the Taiwan Outstanding Women in Science Awards. She received a Ministry of Education National Chair Professorship in 2013. In 2019, she was elected as a fellow of the American Geophysical Union.

Research Ma led the "Taiwan Chelungpu Fault Drilling Project," which explored the causes of the 1999 Jiji earthquake that occurred in central Taiwan on September 21, 1999. Her team was the first to measure the actual thickness of earthquake slip zones, a key parameter in understanding earthquake energy release. Her research implied that the causes of the 921 earthquake is cyclical in nature, predicting a similar one in 400 years. Analyses of the earthquake also led to the first characterization of earthquakes caused by the movement of underground water. The team defined this unusual type of earthquake as an "isotropic event," an earthquake-like event caused by natural hydraulic fracturing. This finding might have implications for fracking operations. Ma established a Taiwan Earthquake Committee to chart earthquake models of Taiwan (the Taiwan Earthquake Model project). In 2018, she created the Earthquake Disaster & Risk Evaluation and Management Center (E-DREaM), an agency that brings together experts and scholars in the disaster chains to analyze the risk factors of events such as earthquakes, tsunami, landslides, soil liquefaction, and extreme weather systems.

Key publications Ma, K. F., Chen, C. C., Hung, H. J., & Chen, M. T. (1993). The origin of tsunamis excited by local earthquakes. Broadband waveform observation of local earthquakes. Ma, K. F., Chen, M. T., & Hung, H. J. (1998). The origin of the 1994 Taiwan earthquakes. Ma, K. F., Mori, J., Lee, S. J., & Yu, S. B. (2001). Spatial and temporal distribution of slip for the 1999 Chi-Chi, Taiwan, earthquake. Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, 91(5), 1069–1087. Ma, K. F., Tanaka, H., Song, S. R., Wang, C. Y., Hung, J. H., Tsai, Y. B., ... & Wu, H. Y. (2006). Slip zone and energetics of a large earthquake from the Taiwan Chelungpu-fault Drilling Project. Nature, 444(7118), 473–476. Ma, K. F., Lin, Y. Y., Lee, S. J., Mori, J., & Brodsky, E. E. (2012). Isotropic events observed with a borehole array in the Chelungpu fault zone, Taiwan. Science, 337(6093), 459–463.

References

Notes

External links Personal website

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Kuo-Fong Ma

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Kuo-Fong Ma claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Kuo-Fong Ma before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Kuo-Fong Ma ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Kuo-Fong Ma

In research: Kuo-Fong Ma appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Kuo-Fong Ma in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Kuo-Fong Ma is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1963 births, Academic staff of the National Central University, Fellows of the American Geophysical Union, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Kuo-Fong Ma outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Kuo-Fong Ma in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Kuo-Fong Ma means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Kuo-Fong Ma out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Kuo-Fong Ma in simple terms?

Why does Kuo-Fong Ma matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Kuo-Fong Ma?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Kuo-Fong Ma.