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Deepwater Petroleum Exploration and Production: A Non- tems needed for the development of an oil field. The overview
technical Guide, 2nd ed., by W. L. Leffler, R. Pattarozzi, and of the two main types of platforms is given in chapter 7; then
G. Sterling, ISBN 978-1-59370-253-3, PennWel , 2011, 350 the details of fixed and floating production systems are covered in chapters 8 and 9. Other chapters cover susbsea systems, plat- form topsides, and pipeline and riser systems. These chapters The deep-water oil industry has been evolving quite significant- were the best and have a good amount of detail explaining these ly in the past 50 years. Now it is not that unusual to explore for complex engineering systems. Support vessels (chapter 13) are and develop hydrocarbon reserves in water depths up to and also vital to the industry. Many are specialized to perform cer- exceeding 3000 m. This book sets out to explain many aspects tain duties, particularly with regard to lift and pipeline laying. of the engineering peculiar to the deep-water oil industry. Each ROVs are vital to the deep-water industry. I was amused by the chapter fol ows a particular aspect of the offshore industry. At explanation that getting an ROV to the right spot is like landing the end of the chapter is a vignette that gives more details about a helicopter under water at night.
an important development within that technology. The end of The final chapter points to the role that technology will con- the chapter also contains a technology curve showing the evo- tinue to have in the offshore oil industry. Current technology lution of important technological developments through time. has enabled the march into deep-water development over the The first two chapters cover the beginning of the offshore past 50 years, but there is still more to come. Technology that oil industry. The industry began in 1897 with the drilling off has only started to come to the deep-water oil industry includes of wooden piers in Southern California. The offshore industry expandable tubulars, riserless drilling, composite materials, etc. really begin to take off after World War II with development Much of the technology is first tested in the Gulf of Mexico in the shallow waters of California, Texas, Louisiana, and Ven- then applied around the world.
ezuela. The offshore industry faces many basic challenges: sea The book is mainly about the deep-water industry in the movement, positioning, material properties changing with pres- Gulf of Mexico, partly because that is where most of the deep- sure and temperature, and the difficulty of working far from water activity has been until recently. There are segments about shore and under water. Each area has sought new solutions as deep-water development elsewhere, in particular at the end water depths became greater—from buoys for positioning to of chapter 4 talking about the offshore industry experience in GPS, under water work via remote operating vehicles (ROV) Brazil. The segments of the book dealing with engineering are reasonably detailed to give readers a basic understanding of the Chapter 3 on geology and geophysics was perhaps the most technology involved. I found the segments on geology and geo- disappointing. It did do a good job of explaining the risk ele- physics to be rather scant (especially geophysics). I did like the ments in exploration of source, reservoir, and trap, but failed to vignettes and technology curves at the end of most chapters. really have much depth in explaining seismic data acquisition, They added a good perspective about the history and evolution processing, interpretation, and well logging. The organization of the industry. So it depends on your needs when looking to of the chapter is more around the general basin geology for the purchase this book. If you need some basic background about Gulf of Mexico, Brazil, West Africa, and the North West Shelf the deep-water oil industry outside of geophysics, this book of Australia. There was a glossary of terms used in petroleum could be a good buy. If you need a more complete book about geology included in the chapter. The newer technologies of ma- the industry, you might need to look elsewhere.
rine controlled-source electromagnetics and gravity gradiom- The steps in the exploration process and the types of people involved are briefly explained in chapter 4. An explorationist has to be concerned with land access, data availability, identifying Digging Snowmastodon: Discovering an Ice Age World in
trends and prospects, mapping, risk and evaluation—all before the Colorado Rockies, by K. Johnson and I. Mil er, ISBN:
drilling an exploration well. If (and this is a big if) the well is 978-1-936905-06-5, People’s Press and the Denver Museum of successful, then comes the appraisal question of “how big?” It Nature & Science, 2012, 144 pp., US $19.95.
is like exploration when you know at least part of the answer. Chapters 5 and 6 explain drilling rigs, and the process of On 14 October 2010, while excavating for the expansion of a drilling and completing a well. Chapter 5 concentrates on the dam on a small lake located near the ski resort town of Snow- types of drilling rigs and the systems on the drilling rig, and mass, Colorado, bul dozer operator Jesse Steele uncovered chapter 6 concentrates on the processes. Here again, I felt the bones of what turned out to be a Columbian mammoth. In explanations were a little light. Blowout prevention (BOP) sys- the authors’ own words: “This book is the story of what hap- tems were mentioned, but the explanation is only about one pened over the next nine months as Jesse’s mammoth turned page of text and one figure. Explaining more about the safety into the most significant high-elevation ice age fossil site in the systems used and drilling processes in a nontechnical way in the world and the biggest fossil dig in Colorado history.” The book post-Macando world would help the industry.
is largely an account of everybody doing the right thing, from Chapters 7 through 12 cover various portions of the sys- the bul dozer operator, his boss, to local and state government officials, to the staff and volunteers of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, where Kirk Johnson is vice president of Wavefronts and Rays as Characteristics and Asymptotics,
Research and Col ections and chief curator, and Ian Mil er is by A. Bóna and M. A. Slawinski, ISBN 978-981-4295-51-2, department chair of Earth Sciences and curator of Paleontol- World Scientific Publishing, 2011, 296 pp., US $90.
ogy.Ultimately, the task facing the museum staff and volunteers “Rays and wavefronts are intrinsic entities contained in hyper- was to move 7000 cubic yards of earth in 50 days, digging by bolic differential equations. In particular, they are solutions of hand with shovels, while taking care to study the stratigraphy the characteristic equations associated with these differential and collect and preserve the more than 4000 fossils bones that equations.” So begins Andrej Bóna and Michael Slawinski’s new book on the subject of characteristic equations and hy- The layout of the book is bright and bold, consisting of perbolic partial differential equations (PDE). For geophysicists, many illustrations, photographs, sketches, and line drawings. the characteristic equations are the eikonal and Christoffel In the introduction, Johnson talks about his personal life, and equations of ray theory.
other digs that he was on prior to this find, giving a human When I opened this book, my first impression was that this touch to this book. He sets the scene for the subsequent chap- is a well-written elaboration and extension of the chapters on ters, three of which are labeled “Acts” and the fourth “Coda.” the method of characteristics that appear in the classic 1983 text The sections of these Acts are titled by the range of dates of the on PDEs by Fritz John (Partial Differential Equations). How- events described. This serves to press upon the reader the time ever, the authors have gone far beyond the classic texts on PDEs pressure under which the expedition was working.
that deal with the method of characteristics. The authors begin Act One discusses the initial discovery and the beginning with simple first-order equations and reveal the geometrical as- of the Museum’s involvement with the project, including issues pects of the associated characteristic equations of Burger’s equa- of interactions with local government and citizens, permitting, tion (the equation of traffic flow) and of Maxwell’s equations.
and a description of the initial dig, which began to reveal the More familiar to the geophysicist are the second-order PDEs of mathematical physics. These are discussed in chapter Act Two describes the assembly of the scientific team, the 2, with the characteristic equations being the Hamilton-Jacobi geological history of the area, some preliminary scientific re- equations of mathematical physics or the eikonal equations fa- sults, and the plan of action for the next season of digging.
miliar to ray theorists. To solve such equations as the eikonal Act Three gives an accounting of the 50-day dig, beginning equation, the discussion in chapter 3 turns to solving first order on 15 May 2011. The authors give a week-by-week account of quasi-linear equations. Much discussion here will be familiar to the process of uncovering the site, and a discussion of the meth- those who have worked in seismic ray theory.
ods used by paleontologists, and discuss the fossils found. The Ray theory works because the asymptotic solutions that reader is given a window into the world of the paleontologists, provide its basis are tied to the intrinsic geometry that governs their associates, their methods, and their thought processes as the propagation of singularities by wave equations. Chapter 4 they consider the questions of how the bones were deposited discusses this propagation of singularities and the ramifications and the meaning of a mysterious find of mastodon bones inter- to ray kinematics and ray amplitude theory, including a deri- mingled with bowling-ball-sized rocks.
vation and solution of the transport equation for ray theoretic The concluding chapter, the Coda, finishes by describing amplitudes.
the last days of the museum staff’s presence in Snowmass, sings Because the transport equation is posed only in terms of the praises of the volunteers as they did most of the physical spatial variables, and not the full six variables of phase space, work, and shows full-page pictures of several of more than 4000 there are destined to be places were the volume of tube made extremely well-preserved fossils found at the site. No more of rays vanishes. These locations are called caustics and are dis- than about 10% of the site has been excavated. The dam was cussed in chapter 5. Through asymptotic analysis, particularly completed on time, and the reservoir filled, with the remaining the method of stationary phase, Bóna and Slawinski examine fossils preserved under several feet of clay and water, safe from the geometrical issues that arise in the vicinity of caustics.
oxygen and looters, preserved for future generations.
The book includes four appendices that provide mathemati- Johnson and Miller’s style is light, accessible, accurate, well cal background material to aid the reader. This monograph also illustrated, and captures the excitement of the discoveries! I liter- has solved exercises that present more details of the mathemati- ally could not put this book down, it moves at such a pace. cal results that appear in the body of the text.
Reading this book I wanted pick up a shovel myself and I like this book for the style that leads the reader from the join the dig! No stodgy professor stereotypes here. Johnson simple to the complex, but which also includes a variety of combines boyish enthusiasm and humor with a multifaceted physical sciences applications. This book isn’t for everybody, but competence in paleontology, genius of expedition organization, for the mathematically sophisticated reader who is interested and in tremendous skill in community outreach and public re- in what is “under the hood,” mathematically speaking, of the lations. There is much to be learned from this book at many PDEs of mathematical physics. The treatment is kept at a level of mathematics that is useful for the physical scientist, provid- ing insight to many of the issues encountered in applications, —John StoCkwell without bogging the reader down with issues that are of interest Golden, USA only to mathematicians. It is clear that the authors view this text as the companion or second volume of Slawinski’s Waves and Rays in Elastic Continua. Much of the format, nomenclature, culation of ray parameters and traveltimes providing context for and style are shared by these two works. Bóna and Slawinski’s results that are known to earthquake seismologists, for example treatment expand and deepen the materials on rays and waves the Herglotz-Wiechert method of traveltime inversion.
presented in Part II of Waves and Rays. The book is much more. The remaining part 4 of the book contains mathematical It is a bridge between mathematicians, mathematical physicists, appendices that make the text more self-contained. Though the and applied scientists in all fields who study wave propagation book is really a monograph, there are many detailed derivations presented as the solutions to exercises. These make the book par- ticularly useful as a self-study guide, allowing the reader to study —John StoCkwell the mathematical foundations of many of the mathematical re- Golden, USA sults that appear in the text.
I like most of this text. The treatment is modern, but the Waves and Rays in Elastic Continua, 2nd ed., by M. A. mathematics is presented in a classical style, readable by geo-
Slawinski, ISBN 978-981-4289-00-9, 2010, World Scientific physicists. Slawinski’s inclusion of issues related to anisotropy is a Publishing, 616 pp., US $120 / £74.
must for any modern book on the subject. The author’s formula- tion of ray theory by first deriving Hamilton’s equations via the Michael Slawinski lays the foundations of elastic-wave theory method of characteristics removes the need to take on faith that developed from continuum mechanics through the derivation the eikonal and Christoffel equations are a priori “Hamiltonian” of elastic-wave equations to their solution, and to the asymp- functions.
totic representation we know as ray theory, in a style that is My complaints are few. For example I note that the author never adopts the Einstein convention of summation over repeat- In chapters 1 through 4, Slawinski presents an easy to read, ed indices for the majority of the text, so there are superfluous but theoretically modern treatment of the relevant aspects of summation signs that appear in many places. To be fair, the Ein- continuum mechanics for elastic-wave theory.
stein convention is introduced in some of the exercises. Some In chapter 5, the author discusses transformations of elas- common terminology such as “stiffness,” “Bond rotations,” tic tensors describing Hooke’s law, including the issues of sym- “Voigt notation,” or “Voigt recipe” do not appear, though the metries in anisotropic media and the Bond rotations. This isn’t book actually has treatments of these topics. Some people who just a rehash of existing results. Slawinski addresses the tensorial read texts by first looking at the index may think that there is no aspects of the Bond rotations, expressing both the stress and treatment of these topics when in fact, there is.
strain tensors in the same basis, providing a proper tensorial rep- In the sections at the end that deal with the Lengendre trans- resentation of the rotation. This is the end of part 1 of the book. formation, Slawinski missed the opportunity to mention that In part 2, Slawinski discusses waves and rays. In chapter 6 this formulation leads to alternatives such as “contact transfor- the author derives the isotropic elastic-wave equation and dis- mation” method of Sergey Goldin, and to the Maslov asymp- cusses properties of isotropic wave phenomena, solutions in 1, totic method. Yet, admittedly these topics are beyond the scope 2, and 3 dimensions, as well as the asymptotic series solutions of the book.
derived from the Helmholtz (reduced wave) equation, and de- All in all, the text provides a modern mathematical phys- rives the (scalar) eikonal and transport equations. Chapter 7 ics context for seismic wave and ray theory, acting as a bridge follows and extends the theme of the previous chapter to the between the disciplines of mathematical physics and geophysics anisotropic elastic-wave equation, with the corresponding vec- that will benefit anyone interested in these topics.
Chapter 8 introduces the method of characteristics and derives Hamilton’s ray equations for isotropic and anisotropic heterogeneous elastic media as a warm-up for chapter 9, where the ray equations for particular symmetries of a general elastic problem are derived. In chapter 10, Slawinski discusses ray the- oretic amplitudes only so far as to discuss ray theoretic reflection and transmission effects. The discussions in the first ten chapters provide the reader with the foundations of the material that will allow the reader to specialize in applied texts, such as Seismic Ray In chapter 11, the author discusses ray theory from the van- tage point the Lagrangian formulation of mechanics, through the application of the Legendre transformation.
In Part 3, Slawinski approaches the problem of ray tracing from a variational perspective, beginning in chapter 12 with a derivation of ray theory from the perspective of Euler’s equations, and deriving Hamilton’s ray equations in this context. Chapter 13 continues with the variational theme addressing the issues of Fermat’s principle of stationary time and Hamilton’s principle of stationary action. Chapter 14 addresses the issue of the cal-

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