Handbook Of Geomathematics

During the last three decades geosciences and geo-engineering were influenced by two essential scenarios: First, the technological progress has changed completely the observational and measurement techniques. Modern high speed computers and satellite based techniques are entering more and more all geodisciplines. Second, there is a growing public concern about the future of our planet, its climate, its environment, and about an expected shortage of natural resources. Obviously, both aspects, viz. efficient strategies of protection against threats of a changing Earth and the exceptional situation of getting terrestrial, airborne as well as spaceborne data of better and better quality explain the strong need of new mathematical structures, tools, and methods. Mathematics concerned with geoscientific problems, i.e., Geomathematics, is becoming increasingly important. The ‘Handbook Geomathematics’ as a central reference work in this area comprises the following scientific fields: (I) observational and measurement key technologies (II) modelling of the system Earth (geosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, biosphere) (III) analytic, algebraic, and operator-theoretic methods (IV) statistical and stochastic methods (V) computational and numerical analysis methods (VI) historical background and future perspectives.

The authors introduce geomathematics as an active research area to a wider audience. Chapter 1 presents an introduction to the Earth as a system to apply scientific methods. Emphasis is laid on transfers from virtual models to reality and vice versa. In the second chapter geomathematics is introduced as a new scientific area which nevertheless has its roots in antiquity. The modern conception of geomathematics is outlined from different points of view and its challenging nature is described as well as its interdisciplinarity. Geomathematics is shown as the bridge between the real world and the virtual world. The complex mathematical tools are shown from a variety of fields necessary to tackle geoscientific problems in the mathematical language. Chapter 3 contains some exemplary applications as novel exploration methods. Particular importance is laid on the change of language when it comes to translate measurements to mathematical models. New solution methods like the multiscale mollifier technique are presented. Further applications discussed are aspects of reflection seismics. Chapter 4 is devoted to the short description of recent activities in geomathematics. The Appendix (Chapter 5) is devoted to the GEM – International Journal on Geomathematics founded ten years ago. Besides a detailed structural analysis of the editorial goals an index of all papers published in former issues is given.

Written by leading experts, this book provides a clear and comprehensive survey of the “status quo” of the interrelating process and cross-fertilization of structures and methods in mathematical geodesy. Starting with a foundation of functional analysis, potential theory, constructive approximation, special function theory, and inverse problems, readers are subsequently introduced to today’s least squares approximation, spherical harmonics reflected spline and wavelet concepts, boundary value problems, Runge-Walsh framework, geodetic observables, geoidal modeling, ill-posed problems and regularizations, inverse gravimetry, and satellite gravity gradiometry. All chapters are self-contained and can be studied individually, making the book an ideal resource for both graduate students and active researchers who want to acquaint themselves with the mathematical aspects of modern geodesy.

In industry and economics, the most common solutions of partial differential equations involving multivariate numerical integration over cuboids include techniques of iterated one-dimensional approximate integration. In geosciences, however, the integrals are extended over potato-like volumes (such as the ball, ellipsoid, geoid, or the Earth) and their boundary surfaces which require specific multi-variate approximate integration methods. Integration and Cubature Methods: A Geomathematically Oriented Course provides a basic foundation for students, researchers, and practitioners interested in precisely these areas, as well as breaking new ground in integration and cubature in geomathematics.

This monograph presents the geoscientific context arising in decorrelative gravitational exploration to determine the mass density distribution inside the Earth. First, an insight into the current state of research is given by reducing gravimetry to mathematically accessible, and thus calculable, decorrelated models. In this way, the various unresolved questions and problems of gravimetry are made available to a broad scientific audience and the exploration industry. New theoretical developments will be given, and innovative ways of modeling geologic layers and faults by mollifier regularization techniques are shown. This book is dedicated to surface as well as volume geology with potential data primarily of terrestrial origin. For deep geology, the geomathematical decorrelation methods are to be designed in such a way that depth information (e.g., in boreholes) may be canonically entered. Bridging several different geo-disciplines, this book leads in a cycle from the potential measurements made by geoengineers, to the cleansing of data by geophysicists and geoengineers, to the subsequent theory and model formation, computer-based implementation, and numerical calculation and simulations made by geomathematicians, to interpretation by geologists, and, if necessary, back. It therefore spans the spectrum from geoengineering, especially geodesy, via geophysics to geomathematics and geology, and back. Using the German Saarland area for methodological tests, important new fields of application are opened, particularly for regions with mining-related cavities or dense development in today's geo-exploration.

This book is an enlarged second edition of a monograph published in the Springer AGEM2-Series, 2009. It presents, in a consistent and unified overview, a setup of the theory of spherical functions of mathematical (geo-)sciences. The content shows a twofold transition: First, the natural transition from scalar to vectorial and tensorial theory of spherical harmonics is given in a coordinate-free context, based on variants of the addition theorem, Funk-Hecke formulas, and Helmholtz as well as Hardy-Hodge decompositions. Second, the canonical transition from spherical harmonics via zonal (kernel) functions to the Dirac kernel is given in close orientation to an uncertainty principle classifying the space/frequency (momentum) behavior of the functions for purposes of data analysis and (geo-)application. The whole palette of spherical functions is collected in a well-structured form for modeling and simulating the phenomena and processes occurring in the Earth's system. The result is a work which, while reflecting the present state of knowledge in a time-related manner, claims to be of largely timeless significance in (geo-)mathematical research and teaching.