John Woodhouse has conducted pioneering work to map the variation of seismic wave speed in three dimensions inside the Earth. He developed many of the main techniques by which the Earth’s interior is mapped, and employed them to study the key problems in Earth structure. His contributions include the discovery of the global distribution of wave speed anomalies associated with plate motion, the first global study of shear velocity in the lower mantle, and discovery of the anisotropy of the inner core. Recent work includes placing bounds on the differential rotation of the inner core and the first reliable observation of shear waves passing through the inner core.
Subject groups
- Astronomy and physics
Planetary science (Astronomy and Physics)
- Earth and environmental sciences
Seismology, Geophysics
