| Love Waves |
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Information About ™Love Waves |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT LOVE WAVE | |
| geophysics | |
| seismology | |
| waves | |
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The particle motion of a Love wave forms a horizontal circle or ellipse moving in the direction of Propagation . Moving deeper into the material, motion decreases to a "node" and then alternately increases and decreases as one examines deeper layers of particles. The Amplitude , or maximum particle motion, decreases rapidly as one examines deeper layers of particles. Since Love waves travel on the Earth's surface, the strength (or amplitude) of the waves decreases exponentially with the depth of the earthquake. However, given their confinement to the surface, their amplitude decays only as , where represents the distance the wave has traveled from the earthquake. Surface waves therefore decay more slowly with distance than do body waves, which travel in three dimensions. Large earthquakes may generate Love waves that travel around the Earth several times before dissipating. |
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