Past exam of the year 2 of the earth sciences (geology) course of the University of Oxford / 2023 / Paper 1 / 6 / o / Solution

Apply the same stress-amplitude convention to S-wave seismic impedance. At limestone–sandstone,At sandstone–salt,A stress-amplitude transmission greater than one does not violate conservation of energy: the transmitted energy fraction includes the seismic impedance ratio. For particle velocity, the corresponding $(R_v,T_v)$ pairs are $(3/19,22/19)$ and $(-1/9,8/9)$. At normal incidence in isotropic layers, pure P and pure S waves do not undergo seismic mode conversion.