An Educational Resource for Visualizing the Global Seismic Wave Field

Introduction The technology currently available in university classrooms often includes interactive whiteboards, high definition displays and projectors; furthermore, many students are equipped with tablet computers. Nevertheless, teaching material that can take advantage of these technologies is time consuming to produce and there is need for additional available material for courses in geophysics. The use of dynamic materials, such as animations and movies, in the classroom has been shown to have the ability to enhance learning (e.g., see Mayer and Moreno 2002 for a review). However, traditional methods of teaching about the global seismic wavefield typically involve static imagery. Usually this has been achieved through a combination of drawing ray paths and wave fronts at distinct time steps. Thus, students have had to build the mental connections between the underlying wave propagation and the static imagery being displayed. But, the recent availability of cheap computer clusters has made numerical computation of the seismic wavefield in realistic Earth models readily accessible. As a result, animating seismic wave propagation has become relatively commonplace.