SEISMIC WAVE — EARTHQUAKE PROPAGATION MAPPING

VISUAL STYLE: Earthquake energy propagation made visible — seismic waves radiating from an epicentre through the Earth's interior, revealed in false-colour scientific imaging. P-waves and S-waves travelling at different speeds through different materials, reflecting off boundaries, refracting through the core. The Earth as a musical instrument struck at one point, resonating globally.

COLOUR PALETTE: The Earth's interior in deep, cool blues and greys — the ground state, the unshaken rock. Seismic energy encoded in vivid, warm false colour: the wavefront itself in electric white-gold — maximum energy, maximum ground motion. Trailing behind the wavefront: vivid red and orange for strong shaking, transitioning through yellow and green for moderate, returning to blue-violet at the trailing edge where energy has dissipated. The Earth's core — reached by P-waves but not S-waves — in a distinct deep amber, the colour of a different material entirely.

WAVE TYPES: P-waves (compression waves) travel fastest — shown as the leading, brightest wavefront. S-waves (shear waves) travel slower — a second ring of energy following behind. Surface waves (Love and Rayleigh) travel slowest but carry the most destructive energy — shown rolling across the Earth's surface like ripples on a pond.

THE INTERIOR: The Earth in cross-section — crust, mantle, outer core, inner core — each layer with different seismic velocity, each causing refraction and reflection of the wavefronts. At the core-mantle boundary, P-waves refract sharply; S-waves stop entirely. The inner core reflects some P-waves back, creating a secondary wavefront.

GLOBAL RESONANCE: After a very large earthquake, the entire Earth rings like a bell — normal modes of oscillation that make the planet's diameter oscillate by centimetres. These are shown as standing wave patterns on the Earth's surface.

MOVEMENT: Wavefronts expand from the epicentre at thousands of metres per second, reaching the opposite side of the Earth in twenty minutes.

No photographs. No geographic detail beyond implied scale. No real people. Pure seismic physics, pure wave propagation, pure Earth interior structure