The damping of P waves

Recent publications have indicated that a significant dependence of the quality factor Q on frequency may occur in the interior of the earth, and thus an analysis of pulse propagation in media with Q dependent on frequency is appropriate. It is shown that a simple scaling law describes the degradation of an initially sharp pulse as it propagates in a linear viscoelastic medium in which Q has a power‐law dependence on frequency. Of particular interest is the variation of the pulse rise time with path, as this parameter may be useful in estimating the Q structure of the earth.

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Seismic wave attenuation in rocks

Mavko¹,

Kjartansson²,

Winkler³

1979

Reviews of Geophysics

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A fundamental feature associated with the propagation of stress waves in all solids is absorption of energy, which usually results in a change of the shape of transient waveforms. Despite its importance, the processes by which mechanical wave energy is converted into heat, and its effect on seismic observations, have been poorly understood. Although considerable progress has been made during the past few years, seismic attenuation remains a controversial subject as there is still considerable disagreement between different authors about some of its most fundamental aspects. In the first section of this paper the progress in arriving at a general phenomenological description of wave propagation and related effects such as the frequency dependence of the elastic moduli and transient creep will be covered. It turns out that for most attenuation mechanisms that are significant in rocks, this can be treated relatively independent of the details of the particular physical mechanisms responsible for the energy dissipation, which are treated in the second section. The third section gives a review of experimental results.

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The damping of P waves

Cited by 5 publications

References 9 publications

Linear viscoelastic behaviour in rocks

Linear viscoelastic behaviour in rocks

Pulse propagation in media with frequency‐dependent Q

Seismic wave attenuation in rocks

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