Abstract:
The idea for this book originated in 1987 while I was preparing
for lectures on courses in applied geology and environmental geophysics at Plymouth Polytechnic (now the University of Plymouth),
Devon, England. Students who had only very basic mathematical
skills and little if any physics background found most of the socalled ‘introductory’ texts difficult to follow owing to the perceived
opacity of text and daunting display of apparently complex mathematics. To junior undergraduates, this is immediately offputting
and geophysics becomes known as a ‘hard’ subject and one to be
avoided at all costs.
I hope that the information on the pages that follow will demonstrate the range of applications of modern geophysics – most now
very well established, others very much in the early stages of implementation. It is also hoped that the book will provide a foundation
on which to build if the reader wishes to take the subject further.
The references cited, by no means exhaustive, have been included
to provide pointers to more detailed discussions.
The aim of this book is to provide a basic introduction to geophysics, keeping the mathematics and theoretical physics to a minimum and emphasising the applications. Considerable effort has
been expended in compiling a representative set of case histories
that demonstrate clearly the issues being discussed.
The first edition of this book was different from other introductory texts in that it paid attention to a great deal of new material, or
topics not previously discussed in detail: for example, geophysical
survey design and line optimisation techniques, image-processing
of potential field data, recent developments in high-resolution seismic reflection profiling, electrical resistivity Sub-Surface Imaging
(tomography), Spectral Induced Polarisation, and Ground Penetrating Radar, amongst many other subjects, which until 1997, when
the first edition was published, had never featured in detail in such a
book. While retaining much of the basic theory and principles from
the first edition, the scope of material has been expanded considerably in the second edition to reflect the changes and develop
