The Solid Earth
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 www.cambridge.org/9780521893077. The book contains an extensive glossary of geological and physical terms, as well as appendices that develop more advanced mathematical topics.
- The first edition was hailed by geophysicists as one of the outstanding texts in modern Earth Sciences
- This new edition has been brought completely up-to-date to reflect the latest advances in geophysics
- The book also contains an extensive glossary of terms, and includes numerous exercises for which solutions are available to instructors from www.cambridge.org/9780521893077
Reviews & endorsements
"...excellent both for teachers and for those seeking a review of these processes from a geophysical point of view." Nature
"Anyone looking through the book will immediately feel that here is a quality textbook which will long be remembered by both teachers and students...I consider that the book is essential for all students seriously commencing a course in geology or geophysics." The Leading Edge, Ronald Green
Product details
December 2004Paperback
9780521893077
728 pages
250 × 195 × 45 mm
1.975kg
384 b/w illus. 31 colour illus. 31 tables 143 exercises
Available
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 operators
- 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.