The recession in the oil industry, and in particular the exploration fields, has not deterred the industry from continued research into the improvement of its geophysical techniques. Latterly, there has been much emphasis on the interpretation of data, and on optimizing data processing systems. The new book series Advances in Exploration Geophysics will reflect the trends in both these areas as well as the new and important aspects of established subjects such as data acquisition, etc. The series will be edited by Professor Berkhout, who is also author of this first volume. In the last few years the role of wave theory in seismic processing has increased significantly; new wave theory solutions to old problems have been formulated with impressive success. In the near future the technology of seismic processing will be largely based on wave theory. This means that, in the coming years, emphasis will further shift from time series based techniques to wave theory based techniques. As a consequence, it is imperative that geophysicists have a thorough understanding of seismic wave theory in order to cope with the technology of tomorrow.

Concise textbook on seismic wave theory, with detailed derivations of formulas, clear explanations of topics, exercises, and selected answers.

The importance of seismic wave research lies not only in our ability to understand and predict earthquakes and tsunamis, but it also reveals information on the Earth's composition and features in much the same way as it led to the discovery of Mohorovicic's discontinuity. As our theoretical understanding of the physics behind seismic waves has grown, physical and numerical modeling have greatly advanced and now augment applied seismology for better prediction and engineering practices. This book demonstrates the latest techniques and advances in seismic wave analysis from a theoretical approach, data acquisition and interpretation, to analyses and numerical simulations, as well as research applications. The major topics in this book cover aspects on seismic wave propagation, characteristics of their velocities and attenuation, deformation process of the Earth's medium, seismic source process and tectonic dynamics with relating observations, as well as propagation modeling of seismic waves.

Fundamentals of Seismic Wave Propagation, published in 2004, presents a comprehensive introduction to the propagation of high-frequency body-waves in elastodynamics. The theory of seismic wave propagation in acoustic, elastic and anisotropic media is developed to allow seismic waves to be modelled in complex, realistic three-dimensional Earth models. This book provides a consistent and thorough development of modelling methods widely used in elastic wave propagation ranging from the whole Earth, through regional and crustal seismology, exploration seismics to borehole seismics, sonics and ultrasonics. Particular emphasis is placed on developing a consistent notation and approach throughout, which highlights similarities and allows more complicated methods and extensions to be developed without difficulty. This book is intended as a text for graduate courses in theoretical seismology, and as a reference for all academic and industrial seismologists using numerical modelling methods. Exercises and suggestions for further reading are included in each chapter.

This volume contains an extensive presentation of the theory, phenomenology and interpretation of seismic waves produced by natural and artificial sources. Each theoretical topic discussed in the book is presented in a self-contained and mathematically rigorous form, yet without excessive demands on the reader's mathematical background. It is the only book to include such a complete presentation of the mathematical background and modern developments of the WKBJ theory of seismic waves, and detailed discussions of its wide ranging applications. The book will therefore be useful to postgraduate students and research workers specialising in seismic wave theory, theoretical seismology, electromagnetic wave theory and other fields of wave propagation theory.

The report summarizes one year of theoretical and applied research on propagation of seismic waves and techniques for analyzing data. The main objectives were to determine the frequency and energy of seismic signatures, and investigate attenuation, patterns of azimuthal radiation from source regions, and methods of determining the type of motion at the source. Natural and artificial sources were studied to develop diagnostic aids for distinguishing between earthquakes and underground nuclear detonations. Equipment for selection, reformatting, and digital-to-analog conversion for digitally recorded LASA data was constructed and is being checked out. Several approaches for using the parallel computational capabilities of optics for LASA data were developed. A study of background noise and reciprocity for teleseismic events as recorded on the bottom of a large fresh water lake has commenced with the emplacement of three-component seismometers in Lake Superior. Array data have been used for crustal studies on the Eastern United States. Digital mode filtering was investigated. A perturbation theory for seismic sources was developed. (Author).

Reprint from Pure and Applied Geophysics (PAGEOPH), Volume 131 (1989), No. 4

Seismic Wave Propagation in Stratified Media presents a systematic treatment of the interaction of seismic waves with Earth structure. The theoretical development is physically based and is closely tied to the nature of the seismograms observed across a wide range of distance scales - from a few kilometres as in shallow reflection work for geophysical prospecting, to many thousands of kilometres for major earthquakes. A unified framework is presented for all classes of seismic phenomena, for both body waves and surface waves. Since its first publication in 1983 this book has been an important resource for understanding the way in which seismic waves can be understood in terms of reflection and transmission properties of Earth models, and how complete theoretical seismograms can be calculated. The methods allow the development of specific approximations that allow concentration on different seismic arrivals and hence provide a direct tie to seismic observations.