Where can I learn more about shear matrices?

The Wikipedia article is not enough, and sadly it does not have any references.

I understand they are linear transformations. Do they form a group? How do they look like for n-dimensional vectors? How many independent shears can I do in n-dimensions? Are they related to the orthogonal group SO(D), perhaps contained?

Google takes me to this other [website][1]. It is almost enough, but again no references.

I am trying to do some physics with this, so I do not think you will tolerate my explanation. ;-)


  [1]: http://cse.taylor.edu/~btoll/s99/424/res/mtu/Notes/geometry/geo-tran.htm