This handbook brings together a great deal of new data on the static and dynamic elastic properties of granular and other composite material. The authors are at the very center of today's research and present new and imported theoretical tools that have enabled our current understanding of the complex behavior of rocks. There are three central themes running throughout the presentation: · Rocks as the prototypical material for defining a class of materials · The PM space model as a useful theoretical construct for developing a phenomenology · A sequence of refined analysis methods. This suite of new methods for both recording and analyzing data is more than a single framework for interpretation, it is also a toolbox for the experimenter. A comprehensive and systematic book of utmost interest to anybody involved in non-destructive testing, civil engineering, and geophysics.