Now in a greatly expanded second edition, this book relates fractals and chaos to a variety of geological and geophysical applications and introduces the fundamental concepts of fractal geometry and chaotic dynamics. In this new edition, Turcotte expands coverage of self-organized criticality and includes statistics and time series to provide a broad background for the reader. Topics include drainage networks and erosion, floods, earthquakes, mineral and petroleum resources, fragmentation, mantle convection, and magnetic field generation. The author introduces all concepts at the lowest possible level of mathematics consistent with their understanding, so that the reader requires only a background in basic physics and mathematics. He includes problems for the reader to solve. This book will appeal to a broad range of readers interested in complex natural phenomena.

The fundamental concepts of fractal geometry and chaotic dynamics, along with the related concepts of multifractals, self-similar time series, wavelets, and self-organized criticality, are introduced in this book, for a broad range of readers interested in complex natural phenomena. Now in a greatly expanded, second edition, this book relates fractals and chaos to a variety of geological and geophysical applications. All concepts are introduced at the lowest possible level of mathematics consistent with their understanding, so that the reader requires only a background in basic physics and mathematics.

This text examines the emerging field of fractals and its applications in earth sciences. Topics covered include: concepts of fractal and multifractal chaos; the application of fractals in geophysics, geology, climate studies, and earthquake seismology.

Fractal geometry allows the description of natural patterns and the establishment and testing of models of pattern formation. In particular, it is a tool for geoscientists. The aim of this volume is to give an overview of the applications of fractal geometry and the theory of dynamic systems in the geosciences. The state of the art is presented and the reader obtains an impression of the variety of fields for which fractal geometry is a useful tool and of the different methods of fractal geometry which can be applied. In addition to specific information about new applications of fractal geometry in structural geology, physics of the solid earth, and mineralogy, proposals and ideas about how fractal geometry can be applied in the reader's field of studies will be put forward.

Reprint from Pure and Applied Geophysics (PAGEOPH), Volume 131 (1989), No. 1

The fractal analysis is becoming a very useful tool to process obtained data from chaotic systems in geosciences. It can be used to resolve many ambiguities in this domain. This book contains eight chapters showing the recent applications of the fractal/mutifractal analysis in geosciences. Two chapters are devoted to applications of the fractal analysis in climatology, two of them to data of cosmic and solar geomagnetic data from observatories. Four chapters of the book contain some applications of the (multi-) fractal analysis in exploration geophysics. I believe that the current book is an important source for researchers and students from universities.