Books about Geophysicists from Amazon.com

This bookÕs abundant figures and exercises, combined with the straightforward, concise style of the book, put the essentials of geophysics well within reach of students whose primary training is in geology and who possess only a basic knowledge of physics. It is designed to introduce the principal geophysical phenomena and techniques—namely seismology, gravity, magnetism, and heat flow.

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Price: $82.95 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Throughout the ages, the lights of the aurora borealis were believed to be messengers of gods, signs of apocalypse, or souls of the dead; even the most sophisticated scientists misapprehended their cause. Now Lucy Jago tells the story of the science--and the romance--behind the Northern Lights as she traces the grand adventure of the life of the visionary Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland.

At the age of thirty-one, Birkeland set out on a lifelong, increasingly compulsive quest to discover the origins of the aurora borealis. He traveled across some of the most forbidding landscapes on Earth, from the ice mountains of Norway to the deserts of Africa, against a backdrop of war and political upheaval. Along the way, Birkeland made some remarkable discoveries and inventions, such as the idea of hearing aids for deaf patients; of making caviar from cod roe; and of using the force of cathode rays to propel rockets. No country's armed forces ever adopted his electromagnetic cannon, but the technology has since been adapted and extended to make "railguns" (electromagnetic mass accelerators) for the American Strategic Defense Initiative--the so-called "Star Wars" Defense.

Ultimately, Kristian Birkeland's obsession with the workings of the cosmos cost him his health, his happiness, and his sanity--perhaps even his life. He spent his final days in exile in Egypt, and died in 1917 in Japan, under suspicious circumstances, his groundbreaking theories unheralded; he was cheated of the Nobel Prize by a rival. But now Birkeland?s ideas are considered to have been prophetic, and they have furthered our understanding not only of the Northern Lights but also of electromagnetism, comets, and the sun.

Exhaustively researched and thrillingly told, the previously unknown story of Kristian Birkeland is an enthralling--and enlightening--saga..
Price: $3.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Covering spectral analysis as well as inversion of geophysical data, David Gubbins introduces the necessary theory and techniques and then demonstrates how they may be practically applied to interpret various types of geophysical signals, including seismic, magnetic and gravity data. Featuring summary boxes, extensive mathematical and computing exercises (solutions and software available on the Internet), and a set of mathematical appendices, this textbook will prove invaluable to geophysics students and instructors..
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Combining popular science, biography, and arctic adventure in a book that reads lika a cross between Longitude, A Beautiful Mind, and Into Thin Air, Lucy Jago presents a riveting acount of the life and work of Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland, the visioinary who solved the mysteries of the aurora borealis.

Here is the true story of an eccentric genius held captive by the allure of celestial splendor; of brushes with death on the remote snowcapped mountains of Norway and in the unforgiving, wartorn deserts of Africa; of the rival who cheated Birkeland of a Nobel Prize; and of the brilliant discoveries Birkeland made before his suspicious death in Japan in 1917. Meticulously researched and passionately wrought, The Northern Lights offers an enlightening account of the science behind one of nature's most spectacular displays and a revealing glimpse into the mind of one of history's most passionate and ill-fated scientists..
Price: $4.78 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Reservoir characterization as a discipline grew out of the recognition that more oil and gas could be extracted from reservoirs if the geology of the reservoir was understood. Prior to that awakening, reservoir development and production were the realm of the petroleum engineer. In fact, geologists of that time would have felt slighted if asked by corporate management to move from an exciting exploration assignment to a more mundane assignment working with an engineer to improve a reservoir's performance.
Slowly, reservoir characterization came into its own as a quantitative, multidisciplinary endeavor requiring a vast array of skills and knowledge sets. Perhaps the biggest attractor to becoming a reservoir geologist was the advent of fast computing, followed by visualization programs and theaters, all of which allow young geoscientists to practice their computing skills in a highly technical work environment. Also, the discipline grew in parallel with the evolution of data integration and the advent of asset teams in the petroleum industry. Finally, reservoir characterization flourished with the quantum improvements that have occurred in geophysical acquisition and processing techniques and that allow geophysicists to image internal reservoir complexities..
Price: $116.41 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The boundary element method (BEM) divides only the boundaries of the region under investigation into elements, so it diminishes the dimensionality of the problem, e.g., the 3-D problem becomes a 2-D problem and the 2-D problem becomes a 1-D problem. This simplifies inputting the model into a computer and greatly reduces the number of algebraic equations. The advantage of this is even more evident for some 3-D and infinite regional problems that are often encountered in geophysics. Originally published in China, this book is likely the most comprehensive work on the subject of solving applied geophysical problems, and it is well organized. Basic mathematical principles are introduced in chapter 1, followed by a general yet thorough discussion of the BEM in chapter 2. Chapters 3 through 7 introduce the applications of BEM to solve problems of potential-field continuation and transformation gravity and magnetic anomalies modeling, electric resistivity and induced polarization field modeling, magnetotelluric modeling, and various seismic modeling problems. Finally, in chapter 8, a brief discussion is provided on how to incorporate the BEM and the finite-element method (FEM) together. In each chapter, detailed, practical examples are given, and comparisons to both analytic and other numerical solutions are presented. This is an excellent book for numerically oriented geophysicists and for use as a textbook in numerical analysis classes..
Price: $14.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]