Ruy Herbert Finch

Ruy Herbert Finch (1890 – March 25, 1957) was an American volcanologist, and second director of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) from 1940 to 1951, succeeding Thomas A. Jaggar. Finch is known largely for his discovery of the 1790 Footprints. Another notable scientific contribution by Finch was the formal addition of block lava to the lava classification types. In 1951, a group of scientists that included Finch were named in the journal Science as "outstanding authorities in their respective fields".

Finch was an Ohio native. He began his professional career in 1910, working as a seismologist for the U.S. Weather Bureau. The HVO was formed during his time there. In 1919, HVO was merged into the Weather Bureau and Finch moved to Hawaii Island in 1923, where he was present during an eruption of Kīlauea in 1924.

From some point in the 1920s until 1935, he directed a seismograph station near Lassen Peak, after which he was transferred to Hawaii National Park. During his time at Hawaii, he worked as an park guide, among other jobs. He became director of HVO in 1940, and served until 1951. During his time at the Observatory, he worked with multiple other geologists of the time most notably, T. A. Jaggar and Gordon Macdonald. After his tenure with the Observatory, he retired and moved to an apple orchard in Watsonville, California with his family, where he died in 1957.

While Thomas A. Jaggar was starting up the Observatory, he began a newsletter called The Volcano Letter, a publication on volcanology. When Jaggar retired in 1940 and Finch took over as director, he also became the editor of The Volcano Letter. The Volcano Letter later went on to be reprinted by Richard S. Fiske, Tom Simkin, and Elizabeth A. Nielsen as editors, of which Simkin was also an author of the book Volcanoes of the World.