786

Book reviews

R.HIDE

Geosounding Principles, 2: Time-VaryingGeoelectric Soundings

(Methods in Geochemistry and Geophysics, 14B)
H. P. Patra and K. Mallick, Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, 1980
419 pp., US $87.75

The past twenty years has seen a proliferation of the geophysical techniques available for the
investigation of the electrical conductivity of the interior of the Earth. Originally, the only
methods of much significance were direct current resistivity sounding using electrodes both
as the source of the current and as a means of measuring the resultant electric field; and the

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and attempts to understand the excitation and damping of the 14 month Chandler wobble
of the pole of rotation. Atmospheric motions contribute significantly to this wobble, and so
do movements in the Earths interior, including earthquakes, which, according to recent
ideas, might make a bigger contribution than that estimated by Munk and MacDonald.
The biggest irregular variations in the length of the day, the so-called decade fluctuations
are considered in chapter nine. At around 5 ms in amplitude, these variations are much too
large to be accounted for in terms of processes in the atmosphere and oceans and, for this
reason, processes in the Earths liquid metallic core, where the geomagnetic field originates,
have to be invoked. We have little direct knowledge of core motions and uncertainties about
the electrical structure of the lower mantle and the topography of the core-mantle interface
render this aspect of the subject more speculative than many others. But the decade fluctuations raise important questions about the structure and dynamics of the Earths deep
interior which have stimulated much useful research in several branches of theoretical
geophysics.
The gradual slowing down of the Earths rotation by gravitational action of the Moon is
directly associated with the dissipation of tidal energy in the fluid and solid parts of the
Earth. Quantitative estimates of all significant contributions to tidal dissipation are hard to
make and many papers have been written on the subject since the pioneering work of
G. H.Darwin, who was also concerned with the related problem of the origin of the Moon.
In chapter ten of his book, Lambeck gives a clear account of the various mechanisms that
produce tidal dissipation, such as friction in shallow seas and in the solid Earth.
The old notion that the pole of rotation of the Earth has over geological time wandered
extensively relative to the Earths surface has - together with the related idea that the continents have drifted relative to one another - become accepted by geophysicists during the
past twenty years, and the interpretation of the phenomenon has been the subject of a
number of important recent theoretical papers. These developments are discussed in chapter
eleven, which also describes recent attempts to estimate changes in the rate of the Earths
rotation in the past on the basis of fluctuations in rates of growth of corals, bivalves and
stromatolites and to infer the history of the Moons orbit. The book ends with an extensive
bibliography, an author index and a subject index.
Professor Lambeck deserves congratulations for producing a timely and significant
addition to the literature of theoretical geophysics, which is bound to influence future
developments in several important areas of research.

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Book reviews
787
electromagnetic prospecting method, using a wire carrying a time-varying current as the
source of a time-varying magnetic field, able to induce electric current in the ground, with
an induction loop as the detector. In those days it would have been a more straightforward
matter to split the subject of electrical sounding into two volumes along the lines of volumes
14A and 14B of the Elsevier series. Since then, however, so many variants of the techniques
have appeared that the division begins to seem rather artificial, and it may have the unfortunate consequence of causing the omission of some important aspects, simply because they
fail to fall neatly into one or other of the major categories.
The volume reviewed here claims to deal with theoretical, computational and interpretational approaches for geoelectric soundings, using various controlled and natural time
varying fields (alternating current, transient, magnetotelluric and geomagnetic). As the
description indicates, the book does not attempt to cover instrumentation or field procedure. Instead, it is concerned with the mathematical principles which underlie the
modelling and interpretation of the data. The result is to rule out mention of some of the
hybrid techniques of the last few years, which have centred on technological developments.
The impact of new high-sensitivity magnetometers on audio-frequency magnetotellurics and
the introduction of more sophisticated and effective controlled sources in the frequency
range 1-1000 Hz is ignored, even though they are having a profound influence on data processing and interpretation. On the other hand, the induced polarization method is dealt with,
apparently for the sole reason of completeness, since the treatment is extremely perfunctory. The four or five pages that are allowed in this book represent a less substantial coverage
than that which is available in the average text on exploration geophysics. In view of what I
would consider to be a patchy treatment of the subject area, it seems best to describe those
subject areas which the book does not cover.
The first chapter deals with the fundamental equations of the electromagnetic field,
including the vector potential and Hertz vector representations. It is very concise, perhaps
overly so, tending at times to become a list of equations. The second chapter is something of
an aside, being concerned with techniques for the solution of the partial differential
equations encountered in electromagnetic theory. Although it might be thought a convenience to have them collected together in one place, the enforced brevity of the descriptions of, for example, the frnite difference, finite element, and integral equation methods, is
such that they are of doubtful practical value to anyone seeking to apply them to a specific
problem.
The two chapters which follow form one of the main sections of the book -that which
deals with the theory of electromagnetic sounding by artificial sources. Here, a further
limitation on the books coverage becomes apparent. The analysis is limited to the onedimensional problem - where the conductivity depends on depth alone. Within this
restricted context, the theory of both continuous and transient depth sounding is dealt with
at considerable length.
The second section of the book is concerned with electromagnetic sounding methods
which make use of natural sources: the magnetotelluric and geomagnetic depth sounding
techniques. Here, the authors do go beyond the one-dimensional problem, by including a
limited treatment of the effects of lateral variations in conductivity, as well as straightforward depth sounding. To be fair, they could hardly do otherwise, since the so-called
geomagnetic depth sounding method is, as most commonly practised, a method for the
detection of lateral changes in conductivity, rather than the vertical structure. The treatment of some of the topics in this section (in particular, techniques for the inversion of
global electromagnetic response data) is so brief and sketchy as to be of little value, and
might as well have been omitted.

788

Book reviews

R.J. BANKS

Geodesy and the Earths Gravity Field, Vol. 2, Geodynamics and Advanced
Methods
Erwin Groten, Ferd. Dummlers Verlag,Bonn, 1980

v t 3 14 pp., 48 DM (paperback)
This volume follows on directly from its companion Volume 1 (reviewed by Cook 1979), in
page and chapter numbering. The subjects covered are gravimetry (91 pages), the geodetic
boundary value problem (18 pages), earth tides (41 pages), inertial methods (11 pages),
space methods (25 pages) and geodynamics (50 pages), and the weighting implied by this
distribution is to some extent a measure of the strengths and weaknesses of the book.
A good feature is the extensive account of the equipment and methods used in the
absolute and relative measurement of gravity, and also of its gradients, which brings together
material, particularly that covering recent methods, that is at present dispersed in journals.
In other respects, however, a reader hoping to benefit from what is stated to be an applications-oriented approach will be disappointed. The chapter on the boundary value problem is
a highly condensed theoretical treatment of Molodenskys problem, while those on space
and inertial methods are dismissive in the extreme and anyone new to the subject will gain
little from them. There is some useful material in the chapters on Earth tides and geodynamics, but again the explanation of important points is often too condensed to be of
much help to the beginner. There are occasional confusing misstatements, as for example on
p. 503, Stokes problem is strictly referred to a sphere being an approximation of the
geoid ... - surely a linguistic slip in interpreting spherical approximation.
The organization and presentation of the diagrams are not particularly good. They are
entirely without captions and are often several pages away from the text that relates to
them, and they are drawn in a flat and unattractive style, with excessively thick lines and
lettering. There is a good bibliography, to which the reader is too often referred for matter

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The final chapter of the book is a collection of case histories of the application of electromagnetic methods to problems of economic and geological interest. It is, I think, significant
that in most of the examples a two- or three-dimensional rather than a one-dimensional
interpretation of the data is clearly required, which casts some doubt on the heavy emphasis
which the authors have placed in their book on one-dimensional models.
In summary, the book is very compendius in its treatment of some subject areas, but
totally neglects other which might have been judged more important. The rationale behind
the choice of subject-matter is very often unclear, and this reader at least would have found
the book more useful if there had been a more clearly defined plan to what it should or
should not contain. In fact, the volume is stated to be based upon a series of lectures, and
the conversion of the lecture course, aimed at a highly specific audience, to a book, aimed at
a much less well-defined public, may have been too difficult a task. The authors are usually
happiest when dealing in equations; the linking passages and chapter introductions are often
uninformative and occasionally misleading.
The final point which must be made about the book is that is is very expensive, even by
todays standards. At such a price, and with the reservations I have about its contents, I
would not have felt that a personal copy was a worthwhile investment.