There are two broad classes of seismic waves: body waves and surface waves. Body waves travel within the body of Earth. They include P, or primary, waves and S, or secondary, waves.

The first kind of body wave is the P wave or primary wave. This is the fastest kind of seismic wave, and, consequently, the first to ‘arrive’ at a seismic station. The P wave can move through solid rock and fluids, like water or the liquid layers of the earth.

Answer: Body waves is the type of wave that is useful to the seismologists in studying the earth’s interior. Body waves are one of the main type of seismic waves — are the waves of energy caused by sudden breaking or explosion within the earth.

A body wave is a seismic wave that moves through the interior of the earth, as opposed to surface waves that travel near the earth’s surface. P and S waves are body waves. Each type of wave shakes the ground in different ways.

Rayleigh waves are surface waves first found by Rayleigh (1885). Particle motion of Rayleigh waves in a half-space is elliptical and retrograde at the surface. The amplitude attenuates with depth. Rayleigh waves are dispersive in a stratified half-space.

Observations of surface waves in the 0.001–0.1 Hz band of frequencies can constrain structure of the crust and upper mantle of the Earth, but only body waves provide information on the elastic velocities of the deeper interior of the Earth, all the way to its center.

Rayleigh waves are a type of surface wave that travel near the surface of solids. Rayleigh waves include both longitudinal and transverse motions that decrease exponentially in amplitude as distance from the surface increases. There is a phase difference between these component motions.