To see if a course is offered, please check the details in KAUST Academic Affairs and the current semester course list.
(offered alternating in spring semester)
The course provides an introduction to global seismology and earthquake physics, and consists of two parts.
Part I: Whole Earth wave propagation (body waves, surface waves, normal modes); imaging Earth 3D structure with ray-based methods; introduction to methods beyond ray-theory; attenuation and scattering of seismic waves.
Part II: Earthquake source mechanics; earthquake kinematics and scaling laws; earthquake dynamics, fracture modes and crack propagation; introduction to probabilistic seismic hazard assessment. Throughout the semester, students work in teams towards a term project, with intermediate discussion sessions and short reports leading up to a final project report and presentation.
(offered in fall semester)
The course provides an introduction to different numerical methods applied to geophysical problems. In particular, the finite-difference, pseudo-spectral, finite-element, and spectral-element methods will be presented and applied to basic geophysical problems including heat flow and wave propagation.
The course offers hands-on lab experience in numerically solving partial differential equations relevant to geophysics. The students will program simple versions of these methods.
(offered alternating in spring semester)
In this course, the students will learn the theoretical and computational fundamentals of global seismic wave
propagation.
Major concepts about body and surface waves, as well as normal modes are introduced. Connections to imaging Earth 3D structure with ray-based methods, and methods beyond ray-theory are shown. Wave propagation phenomena such as attenuation, scattering and ambient noise are presented and studied by hands-on exercises.