Coseismic and post-seismic signatures of the Sumatra 2004 December and 2005 March earthquakes in GRACE satellite gravity

International audienceS U M M A R Y The GRACE satellite mission has been measuring the Earth's gravity field and its temporal variations since 2002 April. Although these variations are mainly due to mass transfer within the geofluid envelops, they also result from mass displacements associated with phenomena including glacial isostatic adjustment and earthquakes. However, these last contributions are difficult to isolate because of the presence of noise and of geofluid signals, and because of GRACE's coarse spatial resolution (>400 km half-wavelength). In this paper, we show that a wavelet analysis on the sphere helps to retrieve earthquake signatures from GRACE geoid products. Using a wavelet analysis of GRACE geoids products, we show that the geoid variations caused by the 2004 December (M w = 9.2) and 2005 March (M w = 8.7) Sumatra earthquakes can be detected. At GRACE resolution, the 2004 December earthquake produced a strong coseismic decrease of the gravity field in the Andaman Sea, followed by relaxation in the area affected by both the Andaman 2004 and the Nias 2005 earthquakes. We find two characteristic timescales for the relaxation, with a fast variation occurring in the vicinity of the Central Andaman ridge. We discuss our coseismic observations in terms of density changes of crustal and upper-mantle rocks, and of the vertical displacements in the Andaman Sea. We interpret the post-seismic signal in terms of the viscoelastic response of the Earth's mantle. The transient component of the relaxation may indicate the presence of hot, viscous material beneath the active Central Andaman Basin

MICROSCOPE mission: first results of a space test of the equivalence principle

According to the weak equivalence principle, all bodies should fall at the same rate in a gravitational field. The MICROSCOPE satellite, launched in April 2016, aims to test its validity at the 10−15 precision level, by measuring the force required to maintain two test masses (of titanium and platinum alloys) exactly in the same orbit. A nonvanishing result would correspond to a violation of the equivalence principle, or to the discovery of a new long-range force. Analysis of the first data gives δ(Ti,Pt)=[−1±9(stat)±9(syst)]×10−15 (1σ statistical uncertainty) for the titanium-platinum Eötvös parameter characterizing the relative difference in their free-fall accelerations

La participation citoyenne pour développer un quartier

Ce récit de pratique tente de montrer comment une stratégie de participation/mobilisation citoyenne peut contribuer à la revitalisation urbaine intégrée (RUI) d’un quartier, et favoriser ultimement les conditions de la sortie de la pauvreté et de l’exclusion sociale. Au-delà du défi de la mobilisation citoyenne se trouve l’enjeu d’un territoire administratif et imposé par les paliers de gouvernement supérieurs. La démarche de participation citoyenne souhaite développer un sentiment d’appartenance et d’appropriation pour en faire un quartier qui partage des visions et des intérêts communs.This practice narrative attempts to show how a strategy of citizen participation and mobilization can contribute to a neighborhood’s integrated urban revitalization, ultimately creating conditions to help people out of poverty. Beyond the challenge of citizen mobilization lies the issue of an administrative territory, defined by higher levels of government. The process of citizen participation aims to develop a sense of belonging and ownership towards a neighbourhood that will share a common vision and common interests

Wavelet modelling of the gravity field by domain decomposition methods: an example over Japan

International audienceWith the advent of satellite gravity, large gravity data sets of unprecedented quality at low and medium resolution become available. For local, high resolution field modelling, they need to be combined with the surface gravity data. Such models are then used for various applications, from the study of the Earth interior to the determination of oceanic currents. Here we show how to realize such a combination in a flexible way using spherical wavelets and applying a domain decomposition approach. This iterative method, based on the Schwarz algorithms, allows to split a large problem into smaller ones, and avoids the calculation of the entire normal system, which may be huge if high resolution is sought over wide areas. A subdomain is defined as the harmonic space spanned by a subset of the wavelet family. Based on the localization properties of the wavelets in space and frequency, we define hierarchical subdomains of wavelets at different scales. On each scale, blocks of subdomains are defined by using a tailored spatial splitting of the area. The data weighting and regularization are iteratively adjusted for the subdomains, which allows to handle heterogeneity in the data quality or the gravity variations. Different levels of approximations of the subdomains normals are also introduced, corresponding to building local averages of the data at different resolution levels. We first provide the theoretical background on domain decomposition methods. Then, we validate the method with synthetic data, considering two kinds of noise: white noise and coloured noise. We then apply the method to data over Japan, where we combine a satellite-based geopotential model, EIGEN-GL04S, and a local gravity model from a combination of land and marine gravity data and an altimetry-derived marine gravity model. A hybrid spherical harmonics/wavelet model of the geoid is obtained at about 15 km resolution and a corrector grid for the surface model is derived

Dense mantle flows periodically spaced below ocean basins

International audienceUnderstanding mantle flow is key to elucidate how deep Earth dynamics relate to tectonics at the global scale. The convective mass transport is reflected in lateral variations of the gravity field, seismic velocities, as well as deformations of the Earth's surface. Yet, upper to mid-mantle dynamics have been difficult to constrain at the medium scales of thousands of km. Here, we analyze the second-order horizontal derivatives of seafloor topography and of the gravity potential over the Pacific and Northern Indian ocean basins, and provide evidence for periodic undulations of 1600-2000 km wavelength in both signals, elongated along the direction of absolute plate motion. We investigate potential crustal and lithospheric sources and show that at least part of this signal must originate below the lithosphere, with alignments of sub-lithospheric upper mantle mass excess below seafloor lows. Furthermore, we find that these alignments coincide geographically over wide areas with similarly periodic slow seismic velocity fingers located at upper mantle depths. These two fields may thus record an intermediate scale of mantle convection below ocean basins, which cannot be explained by purely thermal convection and requires instead lateral variations in composition in the upper mantle. Elucidating the nature of the detected mass excess sources coincident with the slow seismic velocities calls for a joint dynamical modeling of all observations in a thermo-chemical context

Géodésie chronométrique : vers un modèle de géopotentiel haute résolution

National audienc

Multi-scale modeling of Earth's gravity field in space and time

International audienc

Géodésie chronométrique : vers un modèle de géopotentiel haute résolution

National audienc

Impact of the North Atlantic Oscillation on Southern Europe Water Distribution: Insights from Geodetic Data

International audienceFrom space gravity and station position data over southern Europe from 2002 to 2010, this study investigates the interannual mass redistributions using principal component analysis. The dominant mode, which appears both in gravity and positioning, results from the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). This analysis allows us to isolate and characterize the NAO impact on the mass distribution, which appears centered over the Black Sea and its two main catchment basins, the Danube and Dnieper

Fast computation of general forward gravitation problems

International audienceWe consider the well-known problem of the forward computation of the gradient of the gravity potential generated by a mass density distribution of general 3D geometry. Many methods have been developed for given geometries, and the computation time often appears as a limiting practical issue for considering large or complex problems. In this work, we develop a fast method to carry-out this computation, where a tetrahedral mesh is used to model the mass density distribution. Depending on the close-or long-range nature of the involved interactions , the algorithm automatically switches between analytic integration formulae and numerical quadratic formulae, and relies on the Fast Multipole Method to drastically increase the computation speed of the long-range interactions. The parameters of the algorithm are empirically chosen for the computations to be the fastest possible while guarantying a given relative accuracy of the result. Computations that would load many-cores clusters for days can now be carried-out on a desk computer in minutes. The computation of the topographic correction over France and the global topographic correction at the altitude of the satellite GOCE are proposed as numerical illustrations of the method