About the Institute

Considering the importance of geophysical sciences, the International Council of Scientific Union (ICSU) and the International Scientific Union (ISU) announced the year 1957 as the International Geophysical Year, and asked for global cooperation in the development and promotion of this field of science. Therefore, the University of Tehran established the Institute of Geophysics (IGUT). The IGUT initially started its activities with three research divisions of Seismology, Geomagnetism, and Gravimetry. From 1963 to 1965, three WWSSN stations were installed in the cities of Tabriz, Mashhad, and Shiraz. Later in 1975, the Iranian Long Period Array (ILPA) with seven long-period stations were installed in south of Tehran. The Institute extended its activities by an SRO system in Mashhad, and other analog stations in Kermanshah, Minoodasht, Brojen, Mahabad, Ghale-Ghazi and Ghamsar cities. The scope of IGUT was expanded to include educational programs, including M.Sc. in pure and applied Geophysics and Meteorology. Furthermore, in 1970, the departments of Geophysics and Space Physics were officially established. In December 2003, the National Center for Seismic Networks was established at the IGUT, in order to monitor and report earthquake events to governmental organizations. The main duty of this center is monitoring the earthquakes occurring in Iran and nearby regions, and studying the seismicity of Iran with an emphasis on micro-earthquake activities, and further investigating and analyzing earthquake precursors. Thus, the Research Center for Earthquake Precursors (RCEP) was established to fulfill this responsibility.