Planetary seismology

Since 1969, seismology has been extended beyond the Earth, and seismic sensors have been placed on the surface of other bodies of the solar system. A Lunar seismic network thus operated for the 8 years after 1969, with up to 4 stations, and detected some 1000 Moonquakes per year. A single seismic station was also operated on the Martian surface for 19 months since 1977. Unfortunately, it did not detect any Marsquakes, but produced useful information for future experiments. Remotesensing seismic experiments using Doppler shift observation have also been applied to Jupiter in the last two years and are beginning to return information on the normal modes. Planetary seismology is thus now well developed, and will provide increasing information on the structure and dynamics of the planets and bodies of the solar system. In this paper we review the state of the art in planetary seismology. For the terrestrial planets, we compare the seismic sources, structure and experiments on Earth, Moon and Mars. Such a comparison is useful in evaluating the design of past or future experiments. Results in the seismology of giant planets are also reviewed, stressing the connection between methods and theory.     

Multi-Rate Mass Transfer (MRMT) models for general diffusive porosity structures

We determine the relevance of Multi-Rate Mass Tansfer (MRMT) models (Haggerty and Gorelick, 1995) to general diffusive porosity structures. To this end, we introduce Structured INteracting Continua (SINC) models as the combination of a finite number of diffusion-dominated interconnected immobile zones exchanging with an advection-dominated mobile domain. It directly extends Multiple INteracting Continua framework (Pruess and Narasimhan, 1985) by introducing a structure in the immobile domain, coming for example from the dead-ends of fracture clusters or poorly-connected dissolution patterns. We demonstrate that, whatever their structure, SINC models can be made equivalent in terms of concentration in the mobile zone to a unique MRMT model. We develop effective shape-free numerical methods to identify its few dominant rates, that comply with any distribution of rates and porosities. We show that differences in terms of macrodispersion are not larger than 50% for approximate MRMT models with only one rate (double porosity models), and drop down to less than 0.1% for five rates MRMT models. Low-dimensional MRMT models accurately approach transport in structured diffusive porosities at intermediate and long times and only miss early responses.     

Persistence of Planetary Waves in the Lower Ionosphere

The transient planetary waves in the atmosphere and ionosphere seem to occur in the form of bursts of a couple of waves with limited persistence. To study persistence of planetary wave events in the lower ionosphere, data from two radio paths from Central Europe are used, Luxembourg – Panská Ves (f = 6.09 MHz, f _eq = 2.1-2.2 MHz) and Deutschlandfunk – Panská Ves (f = 1539 kHz, f _eq = 650-700 kHz). The absorption along the former radio paths is formed very predominantly at altitudes of about 90-100 km, whereas the latter absorption is formed mostly at altitudes of about 85-90 km. The persistence of planetary wave type oscillations is studied in three period bands centred at 5, 10 and 16 days. Waves with period T near 5 days reveal a typical persistence of wave events around 5 cycles. Waves with T = 10 days are less persistent with a typical persistence of 3-4 cycles. The typical persistence of waves T = 16 days is no more than 3 cycles. In terms of number of cycles, the persistence of oscillations evidently decreases with increasing period. On the other hand, in terms of number of days, the persistence seems rather to increase with increasing period.     

Planetary magnetospheres: 1991–1993

This paper briefly summarizes published work in the field of planetary magnetospheres from 1991 to mid-1993. The 1992 Ulysses fly-by and the proximity of Jupiter for remote sensing have meant that the Jovian magnetosphere has dominated interest in the field, resulting in studies of the interaction of magnetospheric plasma with dust grains as well as the satellite Io, the morphology and chemistry of the Io plasma torus, the aurora, plus plasma processes in the middle magnetospheric current sheet and outer magnetosphere. Two debates (about the plasma sources and transport rate and about the degree of symmetry of the magnetic field) have dominated recent work on the magnetosphere of Saturn. The effects of highly asymmetric magnetic fields on magnetospheric configurations and processes have been the major themes of work on the outermost giant planets since Voyager 2 flew past Uranus and Neptune in 1986 and 1989 respectively.     

The Space and Planetary Robotics Network

Alex Ellery and the SPRN team report on the inaugural meeting of a cross-disciplinary initiative to bring together and enhance UK expertise in robotics and space engineering.     

Planetary waves in coupling the lower and upper atmosphere

The purpose of the paper is to answer the question if planetary waves (PW) are capable of propagating into the thermosphere. First the simplest vertical structure equation of the classic tidal theory accounting for a realistic vertical temperature profile is considered. Analysis and simulation show that the well-known normal atmospheric modes (NM), which are trapped in the lower and middle atmosphere, exhibit a wave-like vertical structure with a large vertical wavelength in the thermosphere. Moreover, the reflection of these modes from the vertical temperature gradient in the lower thermosphere causes appearance of the wave-energy upward flux in the middle atmosphere, and in a linearized formulation this flux is constant above the source region. To investigate a possibility of the NM forcing by stratospheric vacillations and to consider the propagation of different PW up to the heights of the upper thermosphere, a set of runs with a mechanistic Middle and Upper Atmosphere Model has been performed. The results of the simulation show that quasi-stationary and longer-period PW are not able to penetrate into the thermosphere. The shorter-period NM and ultra-fast Kelvin wave propagate up to the heights of the lower thermosphere. However, above about 150 km they are strongly suppressed by dissipative processes. The role of the secondary waves (nonmigrating tides) arising from nonlinear interaction between the primary migrating tides and quasi-stationary PW is discussed. We conclude that PW are not capable of propagating directly up to the heights of the ionospheric F2 region. It is suggested that other physical processes (for instance, the electrostatic field perturbations) have to be taken into account to explain the observed PW-like structures in ionospheric parameters.     

从欧洲抗震设计规范的一般规定浅谈结构抗震概念设计的重要性

由于地震的作用以及在这种作用下的结构与构件的受力状况的复杂性和不确定性,结构抗震设计的计算假定与实际情况存在各种差异,甚至有时还根本无法计算.因此在这种情况下,为确保抗震结构性能,就不得不依赖结构抗震的概念设计.结构抗震概念设计是指工程师们根据结构地震破坏的形态和长期积累的实际工程经验等总结形成的符合工程师专业知识的基...     

Planetary, stellar and galactic evolution from a rocky perspective

Monica M Grady reviews the treasure trove of astronomical data that comes to Earth in the form of meteorites.     

Propagation of Stationary Planetary Waves in the Upper Atmosphere under Different Solar Activity

Numerical modeling of changes in the zonal circulation and amplitudes of stationary planetary waves are performed with an accounting for the impact of solar activity variations on the thermosphere. A thermospheric version of the Middle/Upper Atmosphere Model (MUAM) is used to calculate the circulation in the middle and upper atmosphere at altitudes up to 300 km from the Earth’s surface. Different values of the solar radio emission flux in the thermosphere are specified at a wavelength of 10.7 cm to take into account the solar activity variations. The ionospheric conductivities and their variations in latitude, longitude, and time are taken into account. The calculations are done for the January–February period and the conditions of low, medium, and high solar activity. It was shown that, during high-activity periods, the zonal wind velocities increases at altitudes exceeding 150 km and decreases in the lower layers. The amplitudes of planetary waves at high solar activity with respect to the altitude above 120 km or below 100 km, respectively, are smaller or larger than those at low activity. These differences correspond to the calculated changes in the refractive index of the atmosphere for stationary planetary waves and the Eliassen–Palm flux. Changes in the conditions for the propagation and reflection of stationary planetary waves in the thermosphere may influence the variations in their amplitudes and the atmospheric circulation, including the lower altitudes of the middle atmosphere.     

Planetary Boundary Layer Flows in the Atmosphere and the Ocean at the Equator

—The boundary layer flows created by the frictional dissipation of the wind speed at the surface in the atmosphere and by surface wind stress in the ocean at the equator and in the equatorial region, are obtained by taking the influence of the surface friction on the zonal velocity as being balanced by vertical transport for the long-term mean flow and by a corresponding time variation for time-dependent flow fields. Solutions are expressed in terms of the velocities in zonal and vertical directions and the divergence of the horizontal current in the two media. It is found that under the ever present easterly flow in the lower atmosphere, the boundary layer flow in the atmosphere is convergence and ascending motion in the lower troposphere, and divergence at the surface and uplift in ocean, and in reverse directions for the westerly flow. Similar results are obtained for time-dependent wind fields and they give way to the steady asymptotic solutions when the period of the variation exceeds 10 months.     

Torsional instability in structures

Torsional instability under harmonic excitation was detected in structures with cubic softening member stiffness. A variational procedure was introduced to perform the analysis for the general problem formulation. Single-storey structures with zero eccentricity were studied first; previous findings were checked and corrected, and the behaviour was examined in greater detail. Two-storey structures with large eccentricity were also examined, and further regions of torsional instability were detected. Time history analysis was then employed to quantify the behaviour of various typical structures. An unbounded growth in rotation or column displacement was not observed. Rather, the instability appeared to be related to the jump in response which exists in single degree-of-freedom softening oscillators subjected to harmonic excitation. The practical significance of torsional instability is therefore rather weak, although prudent practice would recommend its avoidance.     

基于变差函数分析的地震时间相关性定量估算

将变差函数分析方法引入地震时间相关性的研究,并以华北地区的强震和松潘地震的前震和余震序列为例对地震的时间相关性进行了分析,在得到华北地区强震相关性规律的同时还定量估算了其周期,并对比了松潘前震和余震序列时间相关性的差异。     

Multipole Expansion: Unifying Formalism for Earth and Planetary Gravitational Dynamics

Surveys in Geophysics - The powerful method of multipole expansion has found wide utility in classical electromagnetics and quantum-mechanics. In contrast, the gravitational mechanics traditionally...