Quantitative Seismology: Theory and Methods

In the past decade, seismology has matured as a quantitative science through an extensive interplay between theoretical and experimental workers. Several specialized journals have recorded this progress in thousands of pages of research papers, yet such a forum does not bring out key concepts systematically. Because many graduate students have expressed their need for a textbook on this subject and because many methods of seismogram analysis now used almost routinely by small groups of seismologists have never been adequately explained to the wider audience of scientists and engineers who work in the peripheral areas of seismology, we have here attempted to give a unified treatment of those methods of seismology th at are currently used in interpreting actual data. We develop the theory of seismic-wave propagation in realistic Earth models. We study specialized theories of fracture and rupture propagation as models of an earthquake, and we supplement these theoretical subjects with practical descriptions of how seismographs work and how data are analyzed and inverted. Our text is arranged in two volumes. Volume I gives a systematic development of the theory of seismic-wave propagation in classical Earth models, in which material properties vary only with depth. It concludes with a chapter on seismometry. This volume is intended to be used as a textbook in basic courses for advanced students of seismology. Volume II summarizes progress made in the major frontiers of seismology during the past decade. It covers a range of special subjects, including chapters on data analysis and inversion, on successful methods for quantifying wave propagation in media varying laterally (as well as with depth), and on the kinematic and dynamic aspects of motions near a fault plane undergoing rupture. The second volume may be used as a texbook in graduate courses on tectonophysics, earthquake mechanics, inverse problems in geophysics, and geophysical data processing.n