Studies in Seismology and Solid Earth Geophysics at the University of Hawaii (including geodesy, gravity, geomagnetism, and geoelectricity) are interdisciplinary and lead to an M.S. or Ph.D. degree. Usually research is selected from one of the topics below, ranging from experimental development to highly theoretical computer modeling.

• Propagation, refraction, reflection, attenuation, and scattering of seismic waves produced by earthquakes, explosions, and shipborne sources. New ocean-bottom and ocean-borehole seismometers and tilt instruments are under development to gather such data near Hawaii's newest volcano, Loihi Seamount, as part of the Hawaii Undersea Geo-Observatory (HUGO) program.
• Advanced theoretical concepts are developed for analysis and interpretation of land and ocean refraction and reflection exploration data for computation of synthetic seismograms for iso- and anisotropic media (where the velocity and attenuation Q(alpha) may vary laterally and with depth), for inversion of large multi-parameter data sets with simulated annealing or genetic algorithms, and for finite element modeling of geodynamics, with emphasis on the shallow structure of convergent margins.
• Ocean-bottom and ocean-borehole seismometers are deployed by our research vessel or with other institutions to study volcanic growth, structure and quakes on propagating rifts, active and passive margins, and the long range propagation of the oceanic, high Q, Pn and Sn, in addition to source mechanism and aftershock sequences.
• Other projects examine deformations in fault zones, mechanisms of magma flow in ridge axes, paleomagnetic field variations during polarity transitions, and theoretical aspects of satellite geodesy.

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last page update on: 7 May 1999