The secondary seismic wave, which travels more slowly than the P wave and consists of elastic vibrations transverse to the direction of travel. S waves cannot penetrate a liquid.
A type of seismic wave that is a transverse, or shear, wave, and which can travel only through rigid materials.
(abbreviation for secondary wave) body wave that causes the rocks along which it passes to move up and down perpendicular to the direction of its own movement. See also P wave.
1. A seismic body wave in which particles vibrate at right angles to the direction in which the wave travels. Contrast with P wave. 2. Seismic wave that propagates by a shearing motion perpendicular to p-wave; the s stands for secondary because it arrives after the p-wave
The second arrival on a seismogram, the S wave, is slower than the P-wave. It is a shear wave and cannot travel through liquids.
Shear, secondary, rotational, tangential, equivoluminal, distortional, transverse, shake wave.
An S (Secondary) wave, or shear wave, is a seismic body wave that shakes the ground back and forth perpendicular to the direction the wave is moving. It is one of two types of body waves. The other type is the P wave. S waves are slower and much more destructive than P waves.
A seismic body wave that shakes the ground back and forth perpendicular to the direction the wave is moving, also called a shear wave.
