This study demonstrates that in mountainous areas the use of residual terrain model (RTM) data significantly improves the accuracy of vertical deflections obtained from high-degree spherical harmonic synthesis. The new Earth gravitational model EGM2008 is used to compute vertical deflections up to a spherical harmonic degree of 2160. RTM data can be constructed as difference between high-resolu...

[1] The south polar terrain (SPT) of Saturn’s moon Enceladus is a mysteriously active region that exhibits intriguing tectonic signatures and widespread fracturing. The central region of the nearly-circular SPT is depressed into the surface by a few hundred meters and bounded by a ring of cliffs roughly 1 km high. In this study, we investigate whether this depression and surrounding mountainous...

MT2DInvMatlab is an open-source MATLAB software package for two-dimensional (2D) inversion of magnetotelluric (MT) data; it is written in mixed languages of MATLAB and FORTRAN. MT2DInvMatlab uses the finite element method (FEM) to compute 2D MTmodel responses, and smoothness-constrained least-squares inversion with a spatially variable regularization parameter algorithm to stabilize the inversi...

Barchan dunes — crescent-shaped dunes that form in areas of unidirectional winds and low sand availability — commonly display an asymmetric shape, with one limb extended downwind. Several factors have been identified as potential causes for barchan dune asymmetry on Earth and Mars: asymmetric bimodal wind regime, topography, influx asymmetry and dune collision. However, the dynamics and potenti...

We present in this paper a polynomial fitting method applicable to segments of footprints measured by the Geoscience Laser Altimeter System (GLAS) to estimate glacier thickness change. Our modification makes the method applicable to complex topography, such as a large mountain glacier. After a full analysis of the planar fitting method to characterize errors of estimates due to complex topograp...

Global digital elevation models are routinely used in a variety of earth science applications. GTOPO30, a widely used global elevation model produced by the U.S. Geological Survey, was produced in the mid-1990s from several regional sources of elevation information. Since the time GTOPO30 was developed, new and improved sources of elevation data have become available, and the U.S. Geological Su...

abstract geosystems or geomorphic systems include terrain structure with processes interactions that work as alone or common and create a series of terrain unites. geosystem elements consist of lines, points, surfaces, and volumes. the ways of relationships between the elements form spatial structure identity. the elements prepare spaces for different land uses, when they are located in ratio t...

Sedimentary rocks are the archives of environmental conditions and ancient planetary surface processes that led to their formation. Reconstructions of Earth's past surface behaviour from the physical sedimentary record remain controversial, however, in part because we lack a quantitative framework to deconvolve internal dynamics of sediment-transport systems from environmental signal preservati...

The Gravity and Ocean Circulation Experiment GOCE satellite mission measure the Earth gravity field with unprecedented accuracy leading to substantial improvements in the modelling of the ocean circulation and transport. In this study of the performance of GOCE, a newer gravity model have been combined with the DTU10MSS mean sea surface model to construct a global mean dynamic topography model ...

The high-degree Earth Gravitational Model EGM08 allows for geoid determination with a resolution of the order of 5'. Using this model for estimating the quasigeoid height, we estimate the global root mean square (rms) commission error to 5 and 11 cm, based on the assumptions that terrestrial gravity contributes to the model with an rms standard error of 5 mGal and correlation length 0.01◦ and 0...