Donald L. Turcotte is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Geology, University of California, Davis. In addition to this book, he is author or co-author of 3 books and over 400 research papers, including Fractals and Chaos in Geology and Geophysics (Cambridge University Press, 1992 and 1997) and Mantle Convection in the Earth and Planets (with Gerald Schubert and Peter Olson, Cambridge University Press, 2001). Professor Turcotte is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, Honorary Fellow of the European Union of Geosciences, and Fellow of the Geological Society of America, and is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the recipient of several medals, including the Day Medal of the Geological Society of America, the Wegener Medal of the European Union of Geosciences, the Bowie and Whitten Medals of the American Geophysical Union, the Regents (New York State) Medal of Excellence, and Caltech's Distinguished Alumnus Award.