Fame

Sure, there have been a couple of famous seismologists. But the only one the general public has ever heard of is probably Charles Richter, who wisely named his Richter scale after himself so that people like us would remember to write about him. There are other famous seismologists like John Milne, who invented the first modern seismograph. He didn't name it after himself, though, so nobody besides people who study this stuff knows who he is. Let that be a lesson to you.

The point is that there is not much of a chance that you'll be popping up on the cover of Rolling Stone. The most you can hope for is being respected in your field, which sounds cool enough to us. As a seismologist, you have to be a little more down to earth.