Timeline of the development of seismology

How's it coming along?

Heres some events that occured regarding your "timeline" searches. (Ill leave it up to you to search out dates)

In the early preCE times , the XCHinese had "earthquake detection vessels that were buried and filled with mercury and water . These vessels could detect earthquakes at relatively great distances. The concept of sound as a "wave" was recognized by this application

A guy named Ptolemy and later Ibn Sahl tried to apply these wave calcultions but were mostly incorrect.

We owe much to Willebrod Snellius for mathematically defining the concept of "refraction" and Huygens for shortly thereafter disxussing wave propogation in various media. Both thee two were key in developing the separate techniques of refraction seismology and reflection seismology. The rest is involving the development of instrumentation over time that could distinguish the varied waves and could separate horizontal from compression and horizontal shear waves. and mathematics that allow for rapid signal processing. Most of the development of modern methods and equipment, Ill venture a guess, was no earlier than about 1895 when a guy named Morie conceived of the first analog horizontal wave detector (insert "seismograph"). All later advances had occured in the 1950's and beyond when electromagnetic sensors (called seismic "jugs") were invented (Actually as an offshoot of the development of electric guitars).

So, the science has a really long gestation period, but the real advances were begun around the time of Snellius and Huygens. WIth the development of methods of detection coming much later.
I dont have any sources ofr the :history" of the science but Im sure that such old texts as Dohr's Applied Geophysics (earlier editions) and Dobrins Geophysics (later editions) Each of these has several good discussions on this field that has benefitted from many overlapping areas of investigation.
Seismology, as a subset of geophysics, has two major areas of interest.
1Exploration and applied sesimic studies-- (used to find mineral deposits and to evaluate subsurface structure for other applications like building tall buildings)

2Theoretical studies---, where discoveries of the 1950;s by such people as Gutenberg, Richter, Bullen, Press and others had developed methods to detect the structure of seismic zones of the earth, the mathematics behind it, what it all meant, and alladding to a developing theory of Plate Tectonics which was, in reality a major synthesis of several earth science disciplines,
(Magnetics, seismology, and spherical geometry)

Ive given you a pretty good outline of the science. You should be able to quickly look up the names and dates and piece the tapestry together. Youve gotta learn this on your own if youre interested in excelling.

I suppose your teacher has concluded that, by ferreting out the times involved in the development of the science, you will pay close attention and learn the science. Good idea and it sure beats the drippy way I learned my seismology (we started with differential equations that seemingly had no relevance until we, the students , just tripped over the fact that SNell was dealing with LIGHT and his law was central to applied ound wave propogation too)

REMEMBER THAT, in mechanics, most all laws are related to other laws bt=y DIMENSIONS. MAgnetics, seismics, gravity, and even electrical flow, all obey the same families of equations and you only have to get one down and you know em all.
Theres a perverse "music of all these spheres of application" and I wish teachers would break it down into simplified forms that help the student learn and understand much more than mere rote.