Product Description

This book provides an approachable and concise introduction to seismic theory, designed as a first course for undergraduate students. It clearly explains the fundamental concepts, emphasizing intuitive understanding over lengthy derivations. Incorporating over 30% new material, this second edition includes all the topics needed for a one-semester course in seismology. Additional material has been added throughout including numerical methods, 3-D ray tracing, earthquake location, attenuation, normal modes, and receiver functions. The chapter on earthquakes and source theory has been extensively revised and enlarged, and now includes details on non-double-couple sources, earthquake scaling, radiated energy, and finite slip inversions. Each chapter includes worked problems and detailed exercises that give students the opportunity to apply the techniques they have learned to compute results of interest and to illustrate the Earth's seismic properties. Computer subroutines and datasets for use in the exercises are available at www.cambridge.org/shearer.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #645989 in Books
• Published on: 2009-06-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 410 pages

Review
‘… a concise and practical survey text that does a fine job of covering the basics … it is ideally suited for an intermediate to advanced undergraduate class …’ Seismological Research Letters

‘Shearer has a knack for clear explanations and for making otherwise difficult concepts easy to understand.’ EOS

‘As an introductory course textbook for upper-level undergraduate students it may be the best textbook available now.’ Physics Today

‘The fundamental concepts are clearly explained, emphasizing intuitive understanding …’ Applied Mechanics Reviews

‘… an excellent introduction for non-seismologists to grasp concepts behind seismological techniques.’ Episodes

‘An attractive and readable way to understand how seismic methods can reveal the inner Earth and how reading the records may help to predict earthquakes.’ - New Scientist

About the Author
Peter M. Shearer is a professor of geophysics at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego. He has written over one hundred scientific papers on various aspects of seismology and is currently the President-Elect of the seismology section of the American Geophysical Union. He has taught the introductory seismology class at Scripps for over 15 years; this book is based on material and problem sets that were developed for this class.

Customer Reviews

Excellent seismology text
This is an excellent text book for all those wanting to know the fundamentals of earthquake seismology and is written in very understandable language with all equations clearly described. Very good for university seismology options