Rings of debris in near-Earth space

The formation of space debris as an accumulation of small heavenly bodies in near-Earth space is considered. How debris can arise in near-Earth space is described. The accumulation of debris is shown to have a ring structure. The formation and spatial distribution of debris are statistically analyzed. A hypothesis for the formation of debris rings in near-Earth space is proposed.     

Processing seismic ambient noise data to obtain reliable broad-band surface wave dispersion measurements

Ambient noise tomography is a rapidly emerging field of seismological research. This paper presents the current status of ambient noise data processing as it has developed over the past several years and is intended to explain and justify this development through salient examples. The ambient noise data processing procedure divides into four principal phases: (1) single station data preparation, (2) cross-correlation and temporal stacking, (3) measurement of dispersion curves (performed with frequency–time analysis for both group and phase speeds) and (4) quality control, including error analysis and selection of the acceptable measurements. The procedures that are described herein have been designed not only to deliver reliable measurements, but to be flexible, applicable to a wide variety of observational settings, as well as being fully automated. For an automated data processing procedure, data quality control measures are particularly important to identify and reject bad measurements and compute quality assurance statistics for the accepted measurements. The principal metric on which to base a judgment of quality is stability, the robustness of the measurement to perturbations in the conditions under which it is obtained. Temporal repeatability, in particular, is a significant indicator of reliability and is elevated to a high position in our assessment, as we equate seasonal repeatability with measurement uncertainty. Proxy curves relating observed signal-to-noise ratios to average measurement uncertainties show promise to provide useful expected measurement error estimates in the absence of the long time-series needed for temporal subsetting.     

火山通道岩浆流动动力学模型在天池火山喷发过程中的应用

在圆柱形火山通道的下部,岩浆上升速度与岩浆粘度、密度及压力有关。这时的流体动力学过程可以应用一般的牛顿流体模型。火山通道中部气泡化岩浆上升时,液相和气相的转化符合质量守恒方程,混合相总体符合动量守恒方程。其中气泡形成与生长过程符合达西定律与数密度方程。在火山通道靠上部的碎屑化带里,不同组分符合质量守恒方程,混合相总体符合动量守恒方程。天池火山千年大喷发时,通道直径是62m。岩浆房内的岩浆含有约3%体积百分数的气泡,气泡体积在65%时岩浆破碎,颗粒离开通道时的速度是145ms~(-1),而气体离开通道时的速度是170ms~(-1)。气体颗粒分散相出口压力是12.2MPa。在破火山口塌陷之前,岩浆房内气泡体积可高达30%～40%。与此同时,碎屑化发生时岩浆的孔隙度也增加到70%～75%左右。这时的出口压力降低至7～8MPa,出口气体速度增加到180ms~(-1)。气象站碱流质寄生火山喷发对应的喷发通道直径是40m,喷发以气体出口速度15～25ms~(-1)的弱爆破性喷发和侵出式喷发为特征。这时浮岩的孔隙度比千年大喷发的孔隙度低,为48%～61%,而浮岩密度高,为1.01～1.35gcm~(-3)。在侵出相喷发时最高释放率可以达到42m~3s~(-1)(致密岩石当量 DRE),孔隙度变化范围是70%～80%。     

Tutorial review of seismic surface waves’ phenomenology

In recent years, surface wave seismology has become one of the leading directions in seismological investigations of the Earth’s structure and seismic sources. Various applications cover a wide spectrum of goals, dealing with differences in sources of seismic excitation, penetration depths, frequency ranges, and interpretation techniques. Observed seismic data demonstrates the great variability of phenomenology which can produce difficulties in interpretation for beginners. This tutorial review is based on the many years’ experience of authors in processing and interpretation of seismic surface wave observations and the lectures of one of the authors (ALL) at Workshops on Seismic Wave Excitation, Propagation and Interpretation held at the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics (Trieste, Italy) in 1990–2012. We present some typical examples of wave patterns which could be encountered in different applications and which can serve as a guide to analysis of observed seismograms.     

Imaging heterogeneity of the crust adjacent to the Dead Sea fault using ambient seismic noise tomography

For the purpose of studying the Earth’s crust by means of tomography, we investigated cross-correlation functions emerging from long-term observations of propagating ambient seismic noise at pairs of broadband stations in Israel and Jordan. The data was provided by the eight permanent broadband stations of the Israel Seismic Network evenly distributed over Israel and the 30 stations of the DESERT2000 experiment distributed across the Arava Fault (South of the Dead Sea basin). To eliminate the influence of earthquakes and explosions, we have applied the methodology of Bensen et al. (Geophys J Int 169:1239–1260, 2007), including bandpass filtering and amplitude normalization in time and frequency domain. The cross-correlation functions estimated from continuous recordings of a few months were used to extract Rayleigh waves group velocity dispersion curves using automatic version of the frequency–time analysis procedure. Subsequently, these curves have been converted into the Rayleigh wave group velocity maps in the period range 5–20 s and S waves velocity maps in the depth range 5–15 km. In these maps, four velocity anomalies are prominent. Two of them are outlined by the previous reflection-refraction profiles and body wave tomography studies, i.e. a low velocity anomaly corresponds to the area of the extremely deep (down to 14 km) sedimentary infill in the Southern Dead Sea Basin and a high velocity anomaly in the Southern Jordan corresponds to the area of the Precambrian crystalline rocks of the Nubian Shield on the flanks of the Red Sea. The two other anomalies have not been reported before - the high velocity zone close to the Beersheba city and the low velocity anomaly in the region of Samaria-Carmel mountains - Southern Galilee. They have relatively low resolution and hence need further investigations for approving and contouring. The highest contrast between the average Rayleigh wave group velocity (2.7 km/s) and the anomalies is 10–13 %, comparable, however, to the level of noise in the data. The results have been verified by modeling the revealed anomalies which showed that all the four zones mentioned above could be detected by the tomography study.     

Near-Earth space as an object of global monitoring

Near-Earth space is analyzed as a specific object for global monitoring. The structure and specific features of near-Earth space are considered. It is shown that this zone includes almost all the terrestrial fields and the regions where space is actively explored by man.     

A Fast and Reliable Method for Surface Wave Tomography

—?We describe a method to invert regional or global scale surface-wave group or phase-velocity measurements to estimate 2-D models of the distribution and strength of isotropic and azimuthally anisotropic velocity variations. Such maps have at least two purposes in monitoring the nuclear Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT): (1) They can be used as data to estimate the shear velocity of the crust and uppermost mantle and topography on internal interfaces which are important in event location, and (2) they can be used to estimate surface-wave travel-time correction surfaces to be used in phase-matched filters designed to extract low signal-to-noise surface-wave packets.¶The purpose of this paper is to describe one useful path through the large number of options available in an inversion of surface-wave data. Our method appears to provide robust and reliable dispersion maps on both global and regional scales. The technique we describe has a number of features that have motivated its development and commend its use: (1) It is developed in a spherical geometry; (2) the region of inference is defined by an arbitrary simple closed curve so that the method works equally well on local, regional, or global scales; (3) spatial smoothness and model amplitude constraints can be applied simultaneously; (4) the selection of model regularization and the smoothing parameters is highly flexible which allows for the assessment of the effect of variations in these parameters; (5) the method allows for the simultaneous estimation of spatial resolution and amplitude bias of the images; and (6) the method optionally allows for the estimation of azimuthal anisotropy.¶We present examples of the application of this technique to observed surface-wave group and phase velocities globally and regionally across Eurasia and Antarctica.     

Remote method of determining the coordinates of points on a planetary surface

A method and an algorithm for determining the coordinates of points on the planetary surface are described. The coordinates are determined using photographs. To solve the problem, the spacecraft coordinates need to be determined at five trajectory points. The spacecraft trajectory is considered to be a plane. The method is applicable for determining the coordinates of points on the Earth’s surface and on the surface of other planets.     

Features of the Non-Plane-Polarized Interaction ofMagnetohydrodynamic (MHD) Shock Waves

The features of the non-plane-polarized interaction of two plane MHD shock waves colliding at an arbitrary nonzero angle in the presence of an arbitrary magnetic field are considered. The problem is solved over a wide range of key parameters. When the key parameters of the problem vary continuously, there are no sudden restructurings (catastropies) of the flow pattern characteristic of the plane-polarized case. As distinct from the plane-polarized case, in the flow developed always there are two Alfvén discontinuities of different intensities with circular polarization. The presence of a magnetic field along the line of intersection of the shock fronts smoothers variation of pressure on the contact discontinuity C as a function of the angles of inclination of the magnetic field, the pressure on C being less than that in the plane-polarized case by several times. The velocity acquired by the medium as a result of the interaction depends significantly on the inclination of the magnetic field. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.