seismic waves

1. In geology, shock waves in solid rock generated by earthquakes or underground explosions. (See seismology.)

Seismic waves travel through the Earth and can be detected far from their source.

Most of our knowledge of the Earth's interior comes from studying seismic waves.

The measurement of seismic waves is also important in detecting underground nuclear tests.

Example Sentences

Shallow earthquakes are common in the country and are more destructive, as seismic waves have less of a distance to travel to the Earth's surface and therefore retain much of their power.

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But the reach of the Quebec earthquake covered a wider area, which we now understand is because the rocks in eastern North America are older, and allow seismic waves to travel more effectively than in California.

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“We can use the ambient seismic vibrations and analyze the speed of seismic waves to sense the aquifers,” he said.

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Vidale said he was busy studying graphs that record ground vibrations caused by seismic waves when one data set “curiously stood out from the rest.”

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To get a sharp picture of the crust near the surface, the project will build on active-source seismic profiling carried out during SinoProbe I. In more than a dozen provinces, researchers laid geophones and seismometers along a transect, set off explosions at the surface, and charted the seismic waves reflected back to the surface by buried rock layers.

Read more on Science Magazine