Seismic wave

By The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica  Edit History

Key People: Inge Lehmann Sir Harold Jeffreys Beno Gutenberg

Explore how earthquakes cause seismic waves

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seismic wave, vibration generated by an earthquake, explosion, or similar energetic
source and propagated within the Earth or along its surface. Earthquakes generate four
principal types of elastic waves; two, known as body waves, travel within the Earth,
whereas the other two, called surface waves, travel along its
surface. Seismographs record the amplitude and frequency of seismic waves and yield
information about the Earth and its subsurface structure. Artificially generated seismic
waves recorded during seismic surveys are used to collect data in oil and gas
prospecting and engineering.

S waves travel through an elastic medium in curved paths and shear the medium in one
direction and then another
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S waves, also called shear or transverse waves, Produced when When one side of a
fault slips past the other, the pressure that had been stored is released cause points of
solid media to move back and forth perpendicular to the direction of propagation; as the
wave passes, the medium is sheared first in one direction and then in another. In the
Earth the speed of S waves increases from about 3.4 km (2.1 miles) per second at the
surface to 7.2 km (4.5 miles) per second near the boundary of the core, which, being liquid,
cannot transmit them; indeed, their observed absence is a compelling argument for the
liquid nature of the outer core. Like P waves, S waves travel in curved paths that are
concave upward.

IV. REFERENCE

 Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/science/seismic-wavE
II. How is graph of sine and cosine function applied in that area?

 The graph of sine and cosine functions serves as the S waves of an earthquake. These
waves show the density and are used as a reference for measuring the possible or actual
magnitude of an earthquake.

III. Reflection

 Based on the article that I read, S waves are surface waves (a type of seismic wave)
generated by an earthquake. S-waves are also called shear or transverse waves. When one
side of a fault slips past the other, the pressure that had been stored is released, resulting
in the movement of the surface that we feel when an earthquake occurs. The image of the
S-wave shown above represents, or simply shows, the graph of sine and cosine. Simple
because the graph of the sine and cosine functions is literally like S waves, waves like the
letter S. That's the reason why I can say that the S-waves from an earthquake are a great
representation of the graph of sine and cosine.