Customer Reviews

Quantitative Seismology: Theory and Methods

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Many descriptions in seismology requires a complete understanding of the theory that support the seismological phenomena. Quantitative Seismology shows you all the fundamental concepts and prepare you for more advanced developments. Its not an introductory textbook, you need a formal background in physics and mathematics. The preface in 1st edition begins: "Seismology has matured as a quantitative science... and several specialized journals recorded this progress...", with this book you'll not obtain only the essentials of this progress; also the essentials of an enjoyable, mature and complete science.

For reference the table of contents:

1.- Introduction
2.- Basic Theorems in Dynamic Elasticity
3.- Representation of Seismic Sources
4.- Elastic Waves from a point of Dislocation Source
5.- Plane Waves in Homogeneous Media and their Reflection and Transmission at a Plane Boundary
6.- Reflection and Refraction of Spherical Waves; Lamb's Problem
7.- Surface Waves in a Vertically Heterogeneous Medium
8.- Free Oscillations of the Earth
9.- Body Waves in Media with depth-dependent properties
10.- The Seismic Source: Kinematics
11.- The Seismic Source: Dynamics
12.- Principles of Seismometry

As a first year graduate student, this was the required text in my very first course in seismology! Boy was I intimidated! I had only taken calculus up through ODE's so much of the material in this book was difficult for me to comprehend. I had no clue what a Green's function was. However, I had a good professor and TA and took extensive notes to get by. Fortunately we only used chapters 2,3,4 and 5. Do yourself a favor if you have to use this book, and you're not a calc/physics guru, by obtaining the Stein/Wysession book. It is a lot more user friendly and application oriented. I used that book in a course the next semester on earthquake seismology and a lightbulb came on! I now understood better what Aki and Richards were talking about! I could go back to it as a reference to gain a deeper understanding. As they say, 'Quantitative Seismology' is the "bible" of the subject and so should be in your library. However, it is more of a reference for experienced users.

This is a very good book. Well organized and in detail. Many topics that appeared in literature but not included in ordinary books are explained in a unified style by the authors.

After writing my first review and getting some more experience, I decided to give this book a higher rating.
Among the seismology texts out there, few are as comprehensive in theory as Aki and Richards. They don't shy away from deriving or proving some important claims, which I like. As a former applied math student, I had a difficult time dealing with distribution-valued differential equations without seeing some justification for making sense out of the Green's functions. I STRONGLY recommend getting Aki and Richards WITH "Foundations of Applied Mathematics" by Greenberg. Aki and Richards is good to use with Peter Shearer's "Introduction to Seismology" and for an even MORE mathematical treatment than Aki and Richards, one could buy Jose Pujol's "Elastic Wave Propagation and Generation in Seismology." This text is not as comprehensive as Aki and Richards, but Pujol derives and proves nearly everything, leaving nothing unsupported.
In short, this book is almost a necessity for every seismologist, but don't use it as a first book.

See my review of Shearer's book. This is a more advanced book in more depth than the other five I have purchased. The difficulty level is 5 out of 5. It appears to be a classic. It would be a good book to take to bed if you can't sleep. I am still glad I purchased it.

Quantitative seismology is a rigorous theoretical text in seismology and contains information on a vast majority of topics in the field. It is an outstanding reference and belongs in the library of every seismologist. A true classic.