Dead horse

The 2012 Super-moon. The largest full moon in 18 years. And no, it did not cause any large earthquakes either.

What exactly does that mean? Well, having a dead horse, in more modern navy slang, is having a debt that comes out of your pay to cover short term loan that the paymaster gave to you. It’s money you don’t see until it’s paid off. There’s nothing wrong with it, you should always pay your debts, but that is just a term that is applied to it. It comes from older nautical days when sailing was prevalent. If your ship was becalmed for extensive periods, odds are, you would run out of feed any livestock that you were transporting. The last thing you want laying around while you are stuck waiting for the wind… are dead horses. I’ve been around the stench of decaying animal copses (MV Livestock Express in the Red Sea) and it is not a pleasant aroma. (the Livestock Express had about 300 sheep stacked in one corner and couldn’t dump them due to environmental regulations)

Yeah, it’s an obtuse approach to the meat of this, but it is related… sort of.

The Horse latitudes are between about 30 and 35 degrees latitude. It’s pretty close to the boundary that I used in this chart.

Image by GeoLurking.

In case you missed it, this is one of the follow up charts that I used down in the discussion in the Moonie post. And, since I’m beating a dead horse, I felt the intro was appropriate.

That chart is a plot of the major plate boundaries between 30°N and °N and 30°S. It’s also the region traversed by the apparent sub Lunar and sub Solar points. That means that they both pass directly over head in this region at some point during the year. (plus about 5° of slop just to make it even)

Edward Lane at April 22, 2012 at 14:54 brought up a good point that spurred me back into thinking about the forces at work on the different ends of the plate boundaries. As many of you remember, I mentioned that if there were an effect, that there should be a physical explanation for it… at least an idea of a mechanism. Something that could be examined to see what the merits of the parent idea were. (Solar/Lunar influence).

Simplifying that plot into something that we can sort of measure, you get this:

Image by GeoLurking.

This is the angular measure of the extents of the plates in longitude as measured from the center of the Earth. The vertical boundaries are misleading, they actually get closer to each other the further from the equator they go. But for getting a general idea of their size, this works.

Now, since the Moon is pretty close, and it’s generally the most touted astronomical body that influences seismic activity, let’s look at what it’s effects might be.

Gravitational acceleration on the surface of the Earth is 9.8 m/s per second. This can also be expressed as N/kg of force. (9.8 N/kg). What is the comparable acceleration effect of the Moon on an object on the Earth? Roughly 0.00003319 m/s² towards the Moon.

How about the variation from one end of a plate to another, allowing for the extra distance from the Moon? Well, for a 30° plate, from directly under the Moon to the end furthest away… 0.00000015 m/s² less.

Here it is in graphic form:

Image by GeoLurking.

Referring back to the rectangular boxes on the plates… the largest extent was about 114°. That plate has an acceleration difference from the Moon of about 0.00000150 m/s², or ten times greater than the 30° plate.

Either way, that variation in force from the moon is still about 0.0000153% that of the gravitational force from the Earth.

This also explains why the researchers who have found a Lunar effect on some already seismically active areas have such a hard time extracting that signal, it is excruciatingly small.

GeoLurking

The Moon and the Moonie

Part I: The Moon

This is getting a bit old. Time and time again, someone bops along with the idea that the Moon or the sun causes an increase in seismicity. They climb up on their soapbox and thump their chest denouncing the world (that would be the rest of us) are blind to the obvious correlation. That we will all suffer ruination if we don’t heed their warnings or suffers some calamity akin to a slow and brutal death.

Hey, sounds like fun. Let’s play.

Here is a plot of all earthquakes greater than Magnitude 4.5 as listed on the USGS website from 1973 to 2010.

Image by GeoLurking.

Wow, that look a bit compelling. How about the power distribution across that same data?

Image by GeoLurking.

Well… that seals the deal. Right?

Not so fast.

First, I would like to point out that there is some research that points to a lunar influence in the activity of certain already seismically active regions, but that this research is founded on actual science. The effect is ephemeral and buried in noise. This is not intended to debunk that research, only to illustrate just how misleading some of the source data is, and how easy it is to jump to conclusions.

Now here is the nugget-o-truth that most people tend to miss:

The longer that the Moon spends at a specific location, the more likely it is that quakes will occur while it is at that location.

The Moon completes an orbit around the Earth about every 27.321 days. All orbits have a Perapsis (closest point on orbit) and an Apoapsis (furthest point). At perapsis the Moon is at it’s highest rate of speed at about 1.076 km/s.1 At apoapsis, it is moving at 0.964 km/s1. Obviously, this speed is not constant. The period of the Lunar orbit is 27.321582 days2 . The Moon goes through a full phase cycle in about 29.53 days3. That’s almost the same period… but it’s not. Couple this with the dynamics of an elliptical orbit, and you get this odd characteristic.

Image by GeoLurking.

This is the dwell time of the Moon on two separate phase cycles. Notice that the curves, though similar, do not match. This is due to the ‘not quite the same’ durations of the phase cycle and the orbital period. Also notice that the amount of time spent at the New and Full phases is longer than at mid phase.

Let’s take a look at several cycles in order to see if there is a pattern.

Image by GeoLurking.

Sure enough… that orange is the plot of several phase cycles. The blue is an average of what is seen at that phase over those same cycles. (the average of the orange curve). We can go a step further and run this through a curve fitting program in order to see if there is a function that matches.

Image by GeoLurking.

That’s pretty good… but note the end points, even though the curve is a good fit, it leave enough uncertainty on the ends to make it mostly useless. I provided the plot mainly since I pissed away about two and a half hours in Erueqa’s “Formulize” in order to find it. (it’s a really great program though).

Taking the idea of using the mean of the curve to calculate a correction factor, and using the 1000 bin average from the previous plot (the one with the orange and blue), we can apply that to the quake count curve.

Image by GeoLurking.

Err… where did the trends go? Okay, maybe the power curve will still show the significant signal.

Image by GeoLurking.

Hmm… not looking so good.

There is still an artifact in there… at least it seems to me like there is an artifact in there… but it’s small. So small that the last thing I would do would be to stand on a soap box preaching at people about it.

Part II: The Sun and the Moon

I realize that some people are adamant about the seismic connection with the Sun and the Moon. I also realize that I have pointed out a few issues with making this connection. One might argue that I was being very selective in presenting the data… okay, fair enough.

Here are some more plots that may, or may not, show a connection. You be the judge.

Image by GeoLurking.

Image by GeoLurking.

Image by GeoLurking.

Image by GeoLurking.

Nothing there that really jumps out at ya eh? Okay, a few more:

Image by GeoLurking.

Image by GeoLurking.

Do note that the apparent dwell time of the Sun at mid Winter and Mid Summer really stands out in that last plot. By the way, see those horizontal bands? Those are the latitudes of seismically active areas.

Continuing…

Image by GeoLurking.

Image by GeoLurking.

Again, the bands equate to known active areas… this time in longitude.

You may think me an ass for not believing in the Sun-Moon-Earth connection. That’s your prerogative. But unlike some, I actually went out and looked for myself. I’m not one to buy a pig in a poke. Personally, I don’t see it in the data. If your numeric skills are better, knock yourself out. I could stand to learn a thing or two while reading it. But if it’s BS, I’m not gonna buy it.

GeoLurking

1) http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/factsheet/moonfact.html

2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon

3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_phase

Planetary bodies, Volcanism & Earthquakes

Photograph from NASA. Jupiters moon Io infront of the planet.

For the sake of argument

Every 3rd Thursday of the month, I have to go to an appointment. I get dressed and walk downstairs from my apartment and stand on the street corner. Usually, a large people mover called a bus shows up. I get on and pay my fare.

Am I to assume that whenever I go to the corner, a bus shows up just because I am there?

That would be preposterous. The bus will show up if I am there or not.
Likewise, Katla erupts about every 47 years. Depending on how you work the average. Eyjafjallajökull, erupts about every 540 years or so. Odds are, that when Eyjafjallajökull erupts, Katla has either just finished an eruptive phase, or is well on its way to have one.

It has been said that there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. One of the most dangerous aspects of statistics is when you are not being able to tell when the data is lying to you, and what truth (as told by the data) is the real truth.

It is real easy for your own data and methods to convince you of something that isn’t real. Sometimes you have to take a step back in order to do a “sniff test” to see if it really makes sense.

Is there a connection between Eyjafjallajökull and Katla? Well, the jury is still out on that. I myself have seen what may be a connective region in the quake patterns, but that doesn’t make it real. Chemically, the two magmas are different. Each carries its own signature of constituent elements.

Now… about astronomical bodies

Vectors are mental mathematical constructs. They allow you to add two or more forces together to see what the result would be if they were to both act on an object at the same time. For example, if two pool balls, each traveling in its own direction strike each other, what direction would they go after a collision?

You can dig into it by representing each pool ball with a mass, and a speed… together with a direction. The mass and speed would give you a value of kinetic energy, and with the direction of travel, you get a vector.

The math can get hairy and tedious, so I will just point you at the law of cosines and the law of sines. All I wanted to point out is that you can add vectors to find out what the result will be.

The Sun is the most massive body in the Solar system. At about 1.99 x10^30 kg, it dwarfs the next most massive body (Jupiter) by factor of about 1048.

Newton’s law of universal gravitation shows that if you multiply the masses of the two bodies, then divide that by the distance between them squared, and then multiply that result by the Gravitational Constant, you can obtain the attractive force between the two objects.

So… lets do that for some of the more significant masses that affect the Earth.

This is a logarithmic scale, used only because the forces have such a wide range.

Image by GeoLurking. Gravitational Force between Earth and various bodies. Click for bigger image.

On average, the Sun exerts 175 times the force than the Moon
Mercury, 0.00004 times the force than the Moon
Venus, 0.00232 times the force than the Moon
Mars, 0.00005 times the force than the Moon
Jupiter, 0.00528 times the force than the Moon
Saturn, 0.00059 times the force than the Moon

So… Whenever you see someone spouting an astronomical theory about the influences of the planets, remember just how much significance that the planets have in relation to each other.

All of those forces are vectors. They have a level of force, and a direction. Those that pull along the same direction are additive, those that pull in opposite directions are subtractive.

There are also another set of forces that are at work that contribute to this whole she-bang… that of inertia. The Earth travels at a speed of about 29.3 to 30.3 km/s.

The mass of the Earth times the velocity would be the inertia that the Earth has.   And that large value is mainly acted on by the 3.5711 x10^22 Newtons of force (towards the Sun) that bends the Earth into a mostly circular orbit.

Next, you have rotational inertia. In order to get really accurate with the effects you would have to account for that also.

And now the one caveat that most loons forget… all this is in real time with constantly changing angles.

That plot that I linked only shows the intensity of the various attractions over the next few months. Each one of those vectors pulls along a different axis.

Can it be calculated? Yeah,  but I am not touching it, nor am I even going to try.
Once you realize that Jupiter and the rest have about 0.00528 the effect of the Moon… well, now you are into the noise floor… brutally.

Best-o-luck seeing how that shows up in your seismic listing or your volcano eruption.

In a nutshell… it ain’t there.

GEOLURKING

We are not alone out there!

Image from Part of Magellan FMIDR 20S003, centered near 18.5S, 6E. Microscopic insect or a volcano?

Yes you are at the correct site and no, I haven’t lost the plot – yet!

The following post is intended as a ‘mouth-waterer’ just to show the great variety of volcanism available.

Volcanism is not restricted to  the Earth, as evidenced by various probes sent to study other members of the Solar System. Obviously, there is an absence of rock samples – other than a few meteorites and collected lunar samples – and no direct on-the-ground observations, thus features and rock types have to be by analogy to terrestrial types. The planets of our System are divided into the Rocky planets – Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars with a relatively thin or no atmosphere surrounding a dense ‘rock-ball’; the remainder classed as Gas Giants with very thick atmospheres around a proportionally small rock core (Pluto excluded as it is now classified as a ‘captured’ Kuiper Belt object). Throughout the System there is usually evidence to some extent of massive impact cratering associated with the Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB) 4.1-3.8 billion years ago. On our Moon the cratering seen dates from this event and it can be argued, that the Mare are ‘volcanic’ as massive lava floods released by impactors rupturing through the crust. The magmatic origin of these is not in doubt, as nunatak-like mountain peaks and relic ‘ghost’ crater rims protrude the surface; similarly some lava-flooded craters, eg Plato, have lava filled floors. These structures have not been dealt with below, not having true volcanic origins – ie extrusion of liquid material not being related to mantle plumes or to tectonism.

The information given herein has been gleaned from various web sites and acknowledge by posting as necessary.

Mercury

Mercury, imaged by the Messenger mission, shows a well cratered surface, dating in general from the LHB, together with evidence of massive Mare-like lava flooding. (It should be noted in passing, that throughout the Solar System large craters are overlapped – where this occurs -by progressively smaller, never vice versa.)  

The Messenger pictures below, show a series of clearly volcanic vents and an associated lava field.

Image Science/AAAS

 Cratering on and therefore after the lava field formation, indicates a very great age, probably towards the end or soon after the end of the LHB possibly around 3 billion years ago. That these features are well preserved is a function of lack of atmosphere hence weathering and no subsequent tectovolcanic activity.

 Venus

Venus, on the other hand, exhibits one of the most volcanically active surfaces in the Solar System – estimated at over 100,000 examples of all sizes, with over 1600 counted! These cover volcanic structures recognised on Earth – calderas, shields,domes and flows, together with some alien examples as the Tick above. The Tick,with a 35km ‘body’ is of unknown structure, possibly an eroded dome, with ‘legs’ the remains of dyke intrusions.

All images of Venus are from radar-scanned images, the dense sulphurous carbon dioxide atmosphere at 465deg C and 93bar pressure precluding normal photographic imagery. Imagery is mainly taken from the Magellan mission.
Venusian calderas are represented by large and small types ,of which Sacajawea is one of the largest at 100x150km (by comparison, Vatnajokull is approximately the same size) and is surrounded by ring faults and lavas.

Image part of Magellan C1 MIDR 60N319, centered at ~66N, 336E

The smaller form below, with a 35km crater, is clearly a collapse caldera with both radial and ring faults well developed seen cutting paler coloured lava flows. Terracing within the crater suggests the presence of a lava lake.

Image part of Magellan F-MIDR 05N228

Shield volcanoes, mostly associated with tectonic rifting, are well represented, with Sif Mons and Gula Mons, at 300 and 400km across respectively, but with corresponding heights of only 2 and 3km amongst the largest .

Magellan Press Release Image P-38724, JPL image MGN-7 2

The smaller Sapas Mons, with a diameter of a mere 120km, vertical image shows well developed flows which from their geometry, appear to be of a fairly fluid lava, possibly basaltic. The false colour radar image shows light colours over rough reflective surfaces, darker over smooth and indicates a change of lava type with decreasing age. The arrows locate impact craters.

Magellan Press Release Image P-38360, JPL image MGN-51

Anemone 1, 40km across, one of the small variety of shields, again shows the radar reflective blocky lavas radiating from the cone, with an extensive reflective lava field beyond, possibly a-a type basalt.

Part of Magellan F-MIDR 10S200, centered on ~9.5S, 201E

Volcanic domes each approximately 25km across, below, show the characteristic light radar reflectance of blocky material and this allied to the absence of obvious lava flows and the radially stretched surfaces to the domes suggests a very viscous magma as rhyolite building the domes from within.

Further Venus images can be found below

 http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/magellan/images.html

http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/oldroot/volcanoes/planet_volcano/venus/intro.html

The Moon

Moving to the Earth – not dealt with here – and the Moon, volcanic activity, other than the Mare flood events, is not seen to any great extent on the Moon being limited to a few relatively small domes and cones. As the Moon is composed almost entirely of basaltic material, it is thought domes are the result of extrusion of viscous cool basalt lava and not rhyolite. However photographs of these features are very poor.

http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/oldroot/volcanoes/planet_volcano/lunar/Overview.html

Mars

Unlike the almost totally volcano covered surface of Venus, Mars has volcanism concentrated in 4 provinces together with extensive volcanic plains. One of the greatest shield volcanoes so far located in the Solar System, Olympus Mons, with a basal diameter around 600km (Iceland has a width – from Snaefellsness to Egilsstaðir – of around 500km) with a height of some 25000m is located in the Tharsis Province. The vast size has been attributed to the presence of a very long-lived mantle hotspot and a lack of plate tectonics, the latter as having prevented Hawaii reaching similar proportions. The periphery of Mons Olympus is a cliff-like edge some 8km in height the origin of this feature as yet unknown. High resolution images show fresh surfaces to flows, as recent as 20 million years has beed suggested.

Image Wikipedia, NASA/JPL. Comparative diagram to scale between Hawaii and Olympus Mons.Image Wikipedeia, NASA/JPL. Tharsis Province.

Olympus Mons off to the apparent north-west of 3 volcanoes – Arsia Mons, Pavonia Mons and (top) Ascraeus Mons. The green coloured area to the ‘north and west’ of Olympus Mons is a vast lava field from this feature.

 Alba Mons, also on Tharsis – the very large red region at the top of the diagram above,  is perhaps less obvious than Olympus Mons, having a very shallow slope around 0.5 degree and 7km high, but the volcanism covers a much greater area, with flow fields of highly fluid lava extending up to 1300km from the eruptive centres. The age of this structure has been suggested at c3.2×10^9 years.
Images for some Martian structures can be seen here:

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/publications/slidesets/mvolcan/volcanoes_index.shtml

The Gas giants

Moving to the Gas Giants, visible ‘volcanism’ is restricted to their satellites owing to their dense, thick atmospheres. In the case of Jupiter, of the 4 major satellites (Io, Europa, Callisto and Ganymede), the innermost, Io (with a diameter of  3642km) is perhaps the most active of all bodies in the Solar System, the volcanism/magma generation being a result of the massive tidal forces induced by Jupiter’s gravity field 422,000km distant. By comparison, the Earth-Moon mean distance is 384,400km.

Density measurements of Io (mean density 3.5g/cc) indicate a probable ultra-basic mantle surrounding an iron core whilst the surface is covered with volcanic silicate rock together with much sulphur derived from sulphide minerals. There is a marked absence of impact events and indicates the surface has been much reworked. Volcanoes, here called Paterae, resemble terrestrial calderas

Tvashtar Paterae showing lava extrusion

Galileo images November 1999 and February 2000 respectively.New Horizons probe animation of erupting Tvashtar.

Galileo image, the orange and red colours are derived from sulphur allotropes of the vent Pele, the dark grey from silicate eruptions from Pilan Patera.

Image by NASA.

Further out still, satellites of Saturn and Neptune may show cryo-volcanic activity, mainly evidenced by the Voyager probes. This activity seen on Triton, one of Neptune’s moons takes the form of ‘geysirs’ of nitrogen gas and dust particles.

Image by NASA/JPL.

If this post has sparked the imagination to look at the heavens and you want to purchace a telescope, do not buy a cheap one or one sold on magnification only; you will be disappointed. Look into astronomy magazines first; Meade and Celestron are excellent instruments.

Alan C