28.10.2016: Arno Zang, GFZ section Seismic Hazard and Stress Field, is honored with an extraordinary professorship of “Geophysics and Rock Mechanics”. On 10 October the University of Potsdam awarded him with the title.

His research deals with the analysis of underground rupture processes and induced seismic events –caused by human activity – in association with different energy technologies. Here, Arno Zang’s special emphasis is on geothermal energy systems and the technique of Hydraulic Fracturing. The objectives are to minimize induced seismicity and maximize the permeability of rock during the process of energy generation. He conducts laboratory tests as well as large-scale hydraulic experiments in underground laboratories.

After finishing his PhD in 1991 at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Zang moved as a postdoc to the State University of New York, Stony Brook, USA, funded by the German Research Foundation, DFG. Since 1993 he works at the GFZ, and in 1993 he qualified as university lecturer (habilitated) at the University of Potsdam, where he worked as an associate professor since 2006. (ak)

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