Love waves due to a point source in an axially symmetric heterogeneous layer between two homogeneous halfspaces

Summary Acoustic gravity waves, propagating over a spherical earth with an isothermal and windless atmosphere, are considered. The perturbed pressure is expressed as a sum of discrete modes which are shown to be orthogonal. It is found that the excitation for the modes is determined by the specified normal particle velocity over a conical surface enclosing the source. One of the modes excited is shown to have characteristics closely akin to a Lamb wave on a flat earth for an isothermal atmosphere.This work was carried out while the author was a visiting professor at Harvard University.