The Solid Earth: An Introduction to Global Geophysics

by C. M. R. Fowler

• ISBN13: 9780521893077
• ISBN10: 0521893070
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-12-20
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The Solid Earth is a general introduction to the study of the physics of the solid Earth, including the workings of both the Earth's surface and its deep interior. The emphasis throughout is on basic physical principles rather than instrumentation or data handling. The second edition of this acclaimed textbook has been revised to bring the content fully up-to-date and to reflect the most recent advances in geophysical research. It is designed for undergraduates on introductory geophysics courses who have a general background in the physical sciences, including introductory calculus. It can also be used as a reference book for graduate students and other researchers in geology and geophysics. Each chapter ends with exercises of various degrees of complexity, for which solutions are available to instructors from [e-mail]. The book contains an extensive glossary of geological and physical terms, as well as appendices that develop more advanced mathematical topics.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Sources

1. Introduction

2. Tectonics on a sphere: the geometry of plate tectonics

3. Past plate motions

4. Seismology: measuring the interior

5. Gravity

6. Geochronology

7. Heat

8. The deep interior of the Earth

9. The oceanic lithosphere: ridges, transforms, trenches and oceanic islands

10. The continental lithosphere

A1. Scalars, vector and differential opertors

A2. Theory of elasticity and elastic waves

A3. Geometry of ray paths and inversion of earthquakes body wave time-distance curves

A4. The least-squares method

A5. The error function

A6. Units and symbols

A7. Numerical data

A8. IASP91 Earth model

A9. Preliminary reference Earth model isotropic version - PREM

Glossary

Index.