Finding Oil and Understanding Earth and Mars

This talk highlights the ways in which seismology helps us find oil and gas and understand Earth and Mars by mapping Earth’s deep interior and taking Mars’s vital signs. For example, as part of the ongoing InSight mission on Mars, seismology is used to detect quakes and measure the planet’s ground motions. Detailed 3D maps of the subsurface can be constructed using a combination of theory, supercomputers, and records of ground motion generated by earthquakes or man-made sources. Such images are used to locate hydrocarbons and understand the dynamics of planetary and solar interiors.

Speakers

• Jeroen Tromp, Blair Professor of Geology, Professor of Geosciences and Applied and Computational Mathematics, and Director of Princeton Institute for Computational Science and Engineering, Princeton University