George Backus

Professor Emeritus

Room: Munk Lab 331

Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics,
Scripps Institution of Oceanography,
University of California San Diego,
La Jolla, CA 92093-0225, USA.

Telephone: (858) 534-2468

Email: gbackus@ucsd.edu

Website: http://www-mpl.ucsd.edu/cg/people/gbackus.html

Research Interests:

• Relativity
• Core-mantle boundary phenomenon
• Core fluid mechanics
• Inversion of geomagnetic data

Recent publications: ^†

• 1997, A six-parameter statistical model of the Earths magnetic field, Geophysical Journal International, 130, 3, 693-700
• 1996, Trimming and procrastination as geophysical inversion techniques, Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, 98, Backus Fest Issue, 101-142
• 1996, On the difference between the average values of B-r(2) in the Atlantic and Pacific hemispheres., Geophysical Research Letters, 23, 15, 1965-1968
• 1996, Is the non-dipole magnetic field random?, Geophysical Journal International, 124, 1, 315-319
• 1995, Geophysics - Dynamo Model at a Turning-Point, Nature, 377, 6546, 198-199
• 1994, An estimate of magnetic correlation length at the core-mantle boundary from the Luecke-Mauersberger-Lowes spectrum, EOS, 75, Supplement, 84
• 1991, Current meters in the core of the Earth, Scripps Institution of Oceanography Reference Series, 91, 97-119
• 1989, Test of Newtons Inverse-Square Law in the Greenland Ice Cap, Physical Review Letters, 62, 9, 985-988
• 1989, Confidence Set Inference with a Prior Quadratic Bound, Geophysical Journal-Oxford, 97, 1, 119-150
• 1988, The Newtonian gravitational constant Ñ On the feasibility of an oceanic measurement, EOS, Trans. Amer. Geophys. Union, 69, 769, 779-780
• 1988, The Field Lines of an Axisymmetric Magnetic-Field, Geophysical Journal-Oxford, 93, 3, 413-417
• 1988, Comparing Hard and Soft Prior Bounds in Geophysical Inverse Problems, Geophysical Journal-Oxford, 94, 2, 249-261
• 1988, Bayesian inference in geomatnetism, Geophysical Journal, 92, 125-142
• 1987, Isotropic Probability-Measures in Infinite-Dimensional Spaces, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 84, 24, 8755-8757
• 1987, Comparing the jerk with other global models of the geomagnetic field from 1960 to 1978, journal of Geophysics Res., 92, 3615-3622
• 1986, The region on the core-mantle boundary where a geostrophic velocity field can be determined from frozen-flux magnetic data, Geophys. J.R. Astron. Soc., 85, 617-628
• 1986, Poloidal and toroidal fields in geomagnetic field modelling, Reviews of Geophysics, 24, 75-109
• 1985, Steady flows at the top of the core from geomagnetic field models: The steady motions theorem, Geophys. Astrophys. Fluid Dynamics, 32, 163-173
• 1985, Some Models of the Geomagnetic-Field in Western-Europe from 1960 to 1980, Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, 39, 4, 243-254
• 1983, Application of mantle filter theory to the magnetic jerk of 1969, Gerphys. J. R. Astron. Soc., 74, 713-746
• 1982, The electric field produced in the mantle by the dynamo in the core, Phys. Earth Planet Inter., 28, 191-214
• 1982, Reply: Limits of validity of first-order perturbation theory for quasi-P velocity in weakly anisotropic media, journal of Geophysics Res., 87, B6, 4641-4644
• 1982, Harmonic splines for geomagnetic modelling, Phys. Earth Planet Inter., 28, 215-229
• 1981, On the relative importance of the driving forces of plate motion, Geophys. J. R. Astron. Soc., 67, 415-435
• 1980, The topping algorithm for calculating extrema of polynomials on subsets of R to the nth power., J. Numer. Anal., 17, 479-511
• 1979, An L-squared form of Bernsteins inequality, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 76, 3061-3064
• 1977, Seismic sources with observable glut moments of spatial degree two, Geophys. J. R. Astron. Soc., 51, 27-45
• 1977, Phenomenological Representation of Seismic Sources, Journal of Geophysics-Zeitschrift Fur Geophysik, 43, 1-2, 497-497
• 1977, Interpreting the seismic glut moments of total degree two or less, Geophys. J. R. Astron. Soc., 51, 1-25
• 1976, Moment Tensors and Other Phenomenological Descriptions of Seismic Sources, II, Discontinuous Displacements, Geophysical Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, 47, 2, 301-329
• 1976, Moment Tensors and Other Phenomenological Descriptions of Seismic Sources, I, Continuous Displacements, Geophysical Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, 46, 2, 341-361
• 1975, Gross thermodynamics of heat engines in deep interior of Earth, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 72, 1555-1558
• 1974, Determination of the external geomagnetic field from intensity measurements, Geophys. Res. Lett., 1, p. 21
• 1970, Uniqueness in the inversion of inaccurate gross Earth data, Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. London, A 266, 1173, 123-192
• 1970, Non-uniqueness of the external geomagnetic field determined by surface intensity measurements, J. Geophys. Res., 75, 6339-6341
• 1970, Inference from inadequate and inaccurate data, III, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 67, 282-289
• 1970, Inference from inadequate and inaccurate data II, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 65, 281-287
• 1970, Inference from inadequate and inaccurate data I, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 65, 1-8
• 1970, A geometrical picture of anisotropic elastic tensors, Rev. Geophys. Space Phys., 8, 633-671
• 1969, Critique of The Resonant Structure of the Solar System by A.M. Molchanov, Icarus, 11, 88-92
• 1969, Constructing P-velocity models to fit restricted sets of travel time data, Bull. Seism. Soc. Am., 59, 1407-1414
• 1968, The resolving power of gross Earth data, Geophys. J.R. Astr. Soc., 16, 169-205
• 1968, Kinematics of secular variation in a perfectly conducting core, Philos. Trans. Roy. Soc. London, A 263, 239-266
• 1968, Approximate solutions to the inverse mode problem, Bull. Seism. Soc. Am., 58, 101-131
• 1968, Application of a non-linear boundary-value problem for LaPlaces equation to gravity and geomagnetic intensity surveys, J. Mech. Appl. Math., 21
• 1968, A note on the potential flow past a lemniscate and a general method of Milne-Thomson, Q. J. Mech. Appl. Math., 26, 441-442
• 1967, Numerical applications of a formalism for geophysical inverse problems, Geophys. J.R. Astr. Soc, 13, 247-276
• 1967, Converting vector and tensor equations to scalar equations in spherical coordinates, Geophys. J. R. Astron. Soc., 13, 71-101
• 1966, Satellite elongation into a true "sky-hook", Science, 151, 682-683
• 1966, Propagator matrices in elastic wave and vibration problems, Geophysics, 31, 326-332
• 1966, Potentials for tangent tensor fields on spheroids, Archive for Rational Mechanics and Analysis, 22, 210-252
• 1966, Possible forms of seismic anisotropy of the uppermost mantle under oceans, J. Geophys. Res., 70, 3429-3439
• 1966, Note on product integrals, J. Math. Phys., 7, 1144
• 1965, The rotational splitting of the free oscillations of the Earth, 2, Rev. Geophys., 3, 1-9
• 1964, Magnetic anomalies over ocean ridges, Nature, 201, 591-592
• 1964, Geographic interpretation of measurements of average phase velocities of surface waves over great circular and great semi-circular paths, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am., 54, 571-610
• 1962, The propagation of short elastic surface waves on a slowly rotating Earth, Bull. Seismol. Soc. Am., 52, 823-846
• 1962, The effect of the Earths rotation on the propagation of ocean waves over long distances, Deep-Sea Res., 9, 185-197
• 1962, Observations of pulses on an interface, Bull. Seism. Soc. Am., 52, 847-888
• 1962, Long-wave elastic anisotropy produced by horizontal layering, J. Geophys. Res., 67, 4427-4440
• 1961, The rotational splitting of the free oscillations of the Earth, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 47, 362-371
• 1960, Linearized plasma oscillations in arbitrary electron velocity distributions, J. Math. Phys., 1, 178-191
• 1960, Bemerkungen uber die adiabatische Invarianz des Bahnmomentes geladener Teilchen, Zeitschrift ur Naturforschung, 11, 1007-1009
• 1958, A class of self-sustaining dissipative spherical dynam, Ann. Phys., 4, 372-447
• 1957, The existence and uniqueness of the velocity correlation derivative in Chandrasekhars theory of turbulence, J. Math. Mech., 6, 215-234
• 1957, The axisymmetric self-excited fluid dynamo, Astrophys. J., 125, 500-524
• 1956, The external electric field of a rotating magnet, Astrophys. J., 123, 508-512
• 1956, On Cowlings theorem on the impossibility of self-maintained asixymmetric homogeneous dynamos, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 42, 105-109
• 1955, On the application of eigenfunction expansions to the problem of the thermal instability of a fluid sphere heated within, Philosophical Mag., 46, 1310-1326