Chapter 5

Seismology from strength to strength

“The big telescopes are for the astronomers what hammers are for us – they’re just simply how you get your data.”

“Seismology is obviously going to get better and better and better and more and more detailed. The fact that we now have the technology to do full waveform inversions without trying to decide whether it’s a P or an S wave or a surface wave, you just take the seismogram as it is and turn that into an Earth model. That is clearly going to be big business. Though people are making a tremendous song and dance about it, they’re not actually yet competitive with the more traditional seismologists. They will be, and that’s going to have an enormous impact.”

“Seismology for people like me is like electromagnetic wave propagation is for the astronomers, it’s the way we can see inside the Earth. Anyone who’s interested in any part of the interior of the Earth is, in the end, going to use full waveform inversion whether they’re interested in mantle convection, finding oil in sedimentary basins, the interior structure of the inner core – all of these things are going to be done with this technology in just the same way as all astronomers use big telescopes. The big telescopes are for the astronomers what hammers are for us – they’re just simply how you get your data.”