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On The Theory Of Head Waves, Patrick Heelan

Research Resources

When a combined longitudinal and transverse disturbance, diverging from a localized source, strikes a plane boundary between two solid elastic media, several systems of head waves and second order boundary waves are generated, each associated with grazing incidence of one or the other of the reflected or refracted waves. Associated with grazing incidence of P ₁ P₂, the refracted P-wave, is the head wave system comprising P₁P₂P₁ (the "refracted wave" of seismic prospectors), and P₁P₂S₁ (a transverse head wave) in the upper medium, and P₁P_{2 …}