EDITOR'S FOREWORD 



Spectacular successes achieved by the Soviet scientists in the field of 

 apphed physics have focused attention on the vigour of scientific research 

 in the U.S.S.R. As a result a concerted attempt is being made to make the 

 extensive Soviet scientific literature available to Western readers. Although, 

 at present, several institutions are concerned wdth translations from Russian 

 only rarely are aspects of applied, as distinct from pure, science given their 

 rightful place. Thus, the attempts of the Pergamon Institute to redress this 

 situation are especially welcome. It must be remembered that in the U.S.S.R. 

 scientific workers often follow what can be called an American tradition in 

 not separating sharply the fundamental research from its technological 

 applications. As a consequence many Russian papers deahng with specific 

 industrial problems contain much of general scientific interest. This is 

 Cbpecially true with respect to geophysics. Every new method of geophysi- 

 cal exploration is valuable since it provides a new possibility of inspecting 

 the imseen parts of the Earth. In any case in a new science practically 

 every investigation is of some significance if only because it adds to the 

 relatively meagre store of factual data. 



In the U.S.S.R. the methods of geophysical research have been extensively 

 apphed not only in an effort to find useful minerals, but also in order to 

 accumulate information on the geological structure of that vast country. 

 B\nthermore, the accuracy and reproducibility of the geophysical methods 

 has been widely checked with the aid of numerous bore-holes systematically 

 located at critical points. As a result very notable advances have been made 

 in developing the so-called electrical, seismic and gravimetric methods, 

 while the existence of the numerous bore -holes has led to an extensive, 

 application and improvement of the geophysical methods of logging. In the 

 present compendium a selection of papers published in the volumes 18 

 and 20 of the Soviet journal "Apphed Geophysics" are being presented to 

 the Western scientists. The intention is to illustrate some of the achieve- 

 ments of the Russian apphed geophysicists by translating their recent publi- 

 cations. Although a fairly wide range of topics is being covered there is 

 a bias towards the apphcation of geophysical methods to the search for oil. 

 In this respect the editor, who was responsible for selecting the papers to 

 be translated, followed the tendency discernible in the original journals. 

 Nonetheless the orientation of many of the included articles on seismic, 

 electrical, gravimetric methods and logging techniques is such that the 



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