Earthquakes and volcanoes

369

As a document think,

however,

observations

to a large extent

than

that.

in Beloussov’s

There

due to poor communication. is welcome.

translated

Perhaps

into Russian

are many

endogenous

This suggests that the differences

therefore

textbooks

it is more

and interpretations

in plate tectonics. English

of the sciences of our time the book is at least of historic that

value. I

fundamental

regimes that I recognise

between

Translation

rather

fixists and mobilists of Beloussov’s

it is an incentive

to have

are

ideas into

more

western

and Chinese. WILLEM

J.M. VAN DER LINDEN

(Utrecht,

The Netherlands)

Earthquakes and Volcanoes. Readings from Scientific American with introductions by B.A. Bolt. Freeman, San Fransisco, Calif., 1980, 154 pp., E8.90 (board), f4.30 (paper). Scientific American has a deservedly high reputation for publishing articles which describe recent scientific advances written by the scientists involved. This volume contains eleven articles or “Readings” on the topics of “Earthquakes and Volcanoes”, arranged in three sections, each with an introduction by B.A. Bolt. The introductions are based on a series of rather artificial questions and answers rather -than straightforward exposition and critical commentary linking the articles.

a

The first section, “Earthquake Properties” has valuable articles on earthquake ground motions (D.M. Boore), resonant vibrations, or free oscillations (F. Press), earthquake prediction (F. Press) and an excellent summary of the geological history and recent seismicity of the San Andreas Fault zone (D.L. Anderson). The second section on “Earthquakes and Earth Structure” starts with an interesting account of the collision between India and Eurasia (P. Molnar and P. Tapponnier), followed by a relevant article on the fine structure of the Earth’s concluding with a review of T.H. Jordan’s very stimulating deep continental and mantle structure. The final section Flow” is rather

disappointing

interior (B.A. Bolt) and but contentious views on on “Volcanoes and Heat

in view of the title of the volume,

volcanoes is a valuable account volcanology has changed during

The first article on

by H. Williams written in 1951. But noting how the last 30 years, and how volcanism can now be

related to plate tedtonic processes, it is unfortunate that a more up-to-date summary of, say, volcanic eruptions and plate tectonics is not available. The other contributions in this section, covering terrestrial heat flow (H.N. Pollack and D.S. Chapman), subduction processes (M.N. Toksoz) and mantle convection (D.P. McKenzie and F. Richter) are all stimulating accounts but unfortunately none deals directly with volcanism! In conclusion, “Earthquakes and Volcanoes” contains readable popular articles of the high standard pioneered by Scientific American and will be valuable for this reason. However, it could have been improved by including a more appropriate

370

choice of articles (or by adopting a more appropriate title!) and providing a more straightforward commentary which emphasised both the links between the articles and

commented

on the status

of each article

in relation

to the current

scientific

consensus. R.S. THORPE

(Milton

Physics of the Earth’s Interior. Proceedings of the International “Enrico Fermi”, Course LXXVIII (Varenna, Italy. Summer wonski and E. Boschi (Editors). Elsevier/North-Holland, xix + 7 16 pp, Dfl. 300 (approx. $120.00.)

Keynes.

United Kingdom)

School of Physics 1979). A.M. DzieAmsterdam,

1980,

To those unfamiliar with the Fermi school tradition, the context of a “summer school” will give a very wrong impression. This was not a stale recitation of tidy problems solved long ago, nor was it a typical research conference, at which many ephemeral theories are presented for the sake of novelty. Rather, a stellar group of geophysical researchers found time to meet for the purpose of diligently and thoroughly educating students and each other up to the brink of present knowledge in their specialties. This written record achieves a depth beyond any survey text in geophysics because it is restricted to three areas of controversy and active investigation: sub-crustal seismology, mantle and core convection, and the earthquake source. The nineteen chapters cover seismic theory and model construction (Jordan), free oscillations

(Gilbert),

normal

mode

splitting

(Dahlen),

eigenfunction

computation

(Woodhouse), seismic attenuation (Minster), associated dispersion (Chin), mantle composition (Oxburgh), the convective geotherm (O’Connell and Hager), mantle rheology (Melosh), equations of state (Mulargia and Boschi), mantle convection (Peltier), plumes and instabilities (Yuen and Peltier), the driving forces on the lithosphere (Hager and O’Connell), the geodynamo (Busse), the evolution of the core and magnetic field (Jacobs), lithospheric stresses (Kanamori), earthquake ruptures (Rice), tectonomagnetism (Bonafede and Boschi), and the meaning of earthquake statistics (Caputo). A unique final chapter records the predictions by each author of the areas of future work which will be most exciting in the next decade. Although these contributions originated as lectures, they have been so revised and edited that it is not apparent. Colloquialisms are absent, and each contains a wealth of basic equations and references to the literature. Throughout, the approach is deductive, with actual data relegated to the figures (usually confirming a predicted curve); this results in rather dry reading but gives the book a lasting value. At least a dozen of the chapters go well beyond the author’s personal work to present a survey of a field. Therefore it must be expected that there is little which has not been previously published in journals. This book is ideal for the physicist seeking to understand the Earth, the applied