An Introduction to Seismology ebook is available to be downloaded here.
- Title: An Introduction to Seismology – Earthquake and Earth Structure
- Author: Seth Stein, Michael Wysession
- Publisher: Blackwell
- Pages: 512
Science is only worth doing if it is interesting and fun. Hence the goal of a textbook is to interest students in a subject, con- vince them it is worth the effort required to learn about it, and help them do so. We have tried here to do all three.
For seismology, these should be easy. It is hard to imagine topics more interesting than the structure and evolution of a planet, as manifested by phenomena as dramatic as earth- quakes. Our goal is to address them via an introduction to seismology, which is one of the cornerstones of the modern earth sciences. Seismology has been defined as the study of earthquakes and associated phenomena, or the study of elastic waves propagating in the earth. By integrating techniques and data from physics, mathematics, and geology, seismology has produced a remarkably sharp picture of the earth’s interior that is a primary datum for studying the formation and evolu- tion of terrestrial planets. Seismologists have also learned much about the nature of earthquakes and the tectonic processes responsible for them. These studies are not of purely academic interest; seismology is the major tool for earthquake hazard assessment, hydrocarbon exploration, and the peacekeeping role of nuclear test monitoring.
We thus believe that seismology should be part of the educa- tion of every solid earth scientist, rather than a specialized course for those whose primary interest is seismology or other branches of geophysics. The subject has much to offer miner- alogists or petrologists studying the composition of the earth’s interior, students of tectonics interested in processes of the lithosphere, geologists interested in the nature and evolution of the crust, engineers concerned with seismic hazards, and planetologists interested in the evolution of the terrestrial plan- ets. As the earth sciences become increasingly more integrated and interdisciplinary, the advantages of understanding seismology will continue to grow.