Notation
The path that a wave takes between the focus and the observation point is often drawn as a ray diagram. An example of this is shown in a figure above. When reflections are taken into account there are an infinite number of paths that a wave can take. Each path is denoted by a set of letters that describe the trajectory and phase through the Earth. In general an upper case denotes a transmitted wave and a lower case denotes a reflected wave. The two exceptions to this seem to be "g" and "n". The notation is taken from and.
| c | the wave reflects off the outer core |
| d | a wave that has been reflected off a discontinuity at depth d |
| g | a wave that only travels through the crust |
| i | a wave that reflects off the inner core |
| I | a P-wave in the inner core |
| h | a reflection off a discontinuity in the inner core |
| J | an S wave in the inner core |
| K | a P-wave in the outer core |
| L | a Love wave sometimes called LT-Wave (Both caps, while an Lt is different) |
| n | a wave that travels along the boundary between the crust and mantle |
| P | a P wave in the mantle |
| p | a P wave ascending to the surface from the focus |
| R | a Rayleigh wave |
| S | an S wave in the mantle |
| s | an S wave ascending to the surface from the focus |
| w | the wave reflects off the bottom of the ocean |
| No letter is used when the wave reflects off of the surface |
For example:
- ScP is a wave that begins traveling towards the center of the Earth as an S wave. Upon reaching the outer core the wave reflects as a P wave.
- sPKIKP is a wave path that begins traveling towards the surface as an S-wave. At the surface it reflects as a P-wave. The P-wave then travels through the outer core, the inner core, the outer core, and the mantle.
Read more about this topic: Seismic Wave