Physics of the Solid Earth

Aim and Content

The course expands on topics introduced in GEOV111 (tectonophysics, the magnetic field, seismology, global and exploration scale gravity, seismic exploration), with more emphasis on geophysics on a global scale and the mathematical and physical basis underlying individual methods. An introduction is given to Matlab programming, which is used as a tool for solving and illustrating geophysical problems.

Learning Outcomes

After completing the course GEOV112 the students should be able to:

- explain the basic concepts of seismology (location determination, magnitude scales, moment, double couple mechanism)

- describe the main seismic phases observed in seismology and explain how they are used to determine the large scale structure of the Earth

- compute the travel times and amplitudes of seismic arrivals in simple layered models and explain how these are used to determine velocity structure in seismic exploration

- explain the basic concepts of gravity (geoid, reference gravity formula, isostasy, gravity anomalies)

- understand the basic geometry of plate movements on a spherical Earth.

- compute paleomagnetic poles and understand their use in paleogeographic reconstructions

- use marine magnetic anomaly patterns to reconstruct the evolution of ocean basins

- write simple Matlab programs and use these to solve problems in geophysics

Grading Scale

The grading scale used is A to F. Grade A is the highest passing grade in the grading scale, grade F is a fail.