Scientists have unveiled a new insight into the origins of the North Atlantic’s volcanic hotspot: it all comes down to the lithosphere being extra thin. By combining gravity data from ESA’s GOCE satellite, seismic and other terrestrial datasets, and thermodynamic inversion methods, researchers have found that ancient upwellings from the Iceland Plume funneled into these …
Satellite observations play a crucial role due to its global and relatively uniform coverage and accuracy. Gravity data from ESA’s GOCE satellite mission provided key information in properly constraining the Earth’s density distribution, as in combination with high resolution seismological data, used in the construction of the WINTERC-G lithosphere model, which was produced in the …
The objective of the work proposed is to develop and validate a new method to compute Absolute Dynamic Topography (ADT) in the Arctic Ocean. This product will be devoted to clean ocean applications: First, the ADT will be assimilated in the CCMEP Regional Ice Ocean Prediction System (RIOPS). RIOPS is used operationally to provide numerical …
Olga is currently an ESA Living Planet Fellow at Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM, Spain). She graduated in Physics from Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB, Spain) in 2012 and completed a Master in Modelling for Science and Engineering in 2014. She also worked as a technician at the Research Group of Ionizing Radiations at UAB. …
Living Planet Fellowship research project carried out by Olga Ortega Gelabert. Geophysical observables (e.g. surface elevation, gravity anomalies, seismic data, surface heat flow, etc.) are one of the main sources of information used to make inferences about the interior of the Earth. Obtaining consistent models requires combining simultaneously different observable datasets into joint inversions. Among geophysical data, …
New research published in Geophysical Journal International describes how scientists generated a new model of the lithosphere using the joint power of GOCE gravity data and seismological observations combined with petrological data, which comes from the study of rocks brought to the surface and from laboratories where the extreme pressures and temperatures of Earth’s interior …
“The Fellowship not only allowed me to pursue my research but also fostered the exchange with ESA’s other solid Earth observation projects that provided and additional and unique perspective.”
Living Planet Fellowship research project carried out by Wolfgang Szwillus. Density variations inside the mantle not only drive mantle convection but are also important indicators of rock composition variation. Satellite gravity measurements, like GOCE, are directly sensitive to large-scale density variations inside the Earth, but their potential is not yet fully used. Instead, density is typically …
A paper, published recently in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, describes how scientists used gravity data from the GOCE satellite mission along with seismological models to reveal unprecedented insight into the crust and upper mantle, otherwise known as the lithosphere, below this frozen continent. Read the full story and find out about …
Height systems and related sea level observations are based on a number of measurement systems, which all have their own characteristics and deliver different type of observations. Traditionally, sea level is observed at tide gauge stations, which usually also serve as height reference stations for national levelling networks and therefore define a height system of …
