Planetary Sciences:

Earth and Beyond

GNR 649
Introduction
• Earth exploration is the investigation of the surface of the Earth and of its
interior.
• By the beginning of the 20th century most of the Earth’s surface had been
explored, at least superficially, except for the Arctic and Antarctic regions.
• Today the last of the unmarked areas on land maps have been filled in by
radar and photographic mapping from aircraft and satellites.
• One of the last areas to be mapped was the Darién peninsula between the
Panama Canal and Colombia.
• Only a very limited portion of the subsurface regions of the Earth, however,
can be studied by placement of sensors and related devices. The deepest
borehole so far drilled extends only to a depth of about 10 kilometers.
• Because direct exploration is so restricted, investigators are forced to rely
extensively on geophysical measurements for subsurface exploration.
Need for Earth’s Exploration
• Many surface and subsurface exploratory projects are undertaken
with the aim of locating:
1. Oil, natural gas, and coal
2. Concentrations of commercially important minerals (for example,
ores of iron, copper, and uranium) and deposits of building
materials (sand, gravel, etc.)
3. Recoverable groundwater
4. Various rock types at different depths for engineering planning
5. Geothermal reserves for heating and electricity
6. Archaeological features
The Beginning
• The exploration of the Earth began more than one million years ago as
groups of human hunter gatherers (Homo erectus) roamed across the
plains of Africa and Asia in search of food.
• More recently, at the end of the last ice age between about 20,000 and
10,000 years ago, when sea level was about 120 meters lower than it is
today, hunting parties from Siberia crossed the Bering Strait on foot to
Alaska, which connected Alaska to Siberia.
• These people subsequently explored the new territory they had discovered
and eventually populated all of North and South America.
• When the continental ice sheet started to recede about 20,000 years ago,
sea level increased and eventually flooded the Bering Strait about 10,000
years ago
Few Centuries back …
• Starting in 1415 AD, Portuguese mariners began a sustained and state-
supported effort to sail south along the coast of West Africa
• Their goal was to find a direct route to the Far East, which was the source
of silk, spices, and other high-priced goods that reached the Mediterranean
region primarily by land via slow-moving caravans
• In the process, the Portuguese navigators disproved much misinformation
about the perils of crossing the equator of the Earth, they constructed
accurate maps, improved navigational techniques, and designed more
seaworthy sailing ships.
• After 83 years of effort by many successive expeditions, the Portuguese
explorer Vasco da Gama in 1498 AD reached the city of Calicut (Kozhikode)
in India.
• Fourteen years later, in 1512 AD, the Portuguese arrived in the Spice
Islands (Moluccas) and, in 1515 AD, they “discovered” China.
Old centuries continue…
• Portuguese were by no means the only explorers at that time because
Chinese navigators had already reached the east coast of Africa, Marco
Polo had lived in China from 1276 to 1292 AD, and Alexander the Great
crossed the Himalayas into India in 326 BC, or 1824 years before Vasco da
Gama sighted the Malabar coast of India.
• While the Portuguese were seeking a direct route to China by sailing east,
Christopher Columbus proposed to Queen Isabella of Spain that China
could be reached more directly by sailing west.
• Columbus actually thought the planet was pear-shaped and his proposal
was declared nonsense.
• However, the defeat of the Moors by the Spanish armies in the battle of
Granada in 1492 caused the Queen to reconsider. Columbus was recalled
to the Spanish court and his proposal was approved on April 17 of 1492.
Still continue…
• Six months later, on October 12, Columbus sighted land after sailing west
across the Atlantic Ocean six years before Vasco da Gama reached India.
• Christopher Columbus had, in effect, rediscovered North America which
had been populated thousands of years earlier by people from Siberia and
which had also been visited by Vikings led by Leif Eriksson, son of Erikthe
Red, who had established a settlement in Greenland in 986 AD.
• Actually, Columbus never set foot in North America. Columbus’s first
landfall was most likely somewhere near the Bahamas or the Dominican
Republic.
• When Columbus landed, natives already inhabited the land. He called them
Indians because he initially thought he had reached India. Later, the group
of islands were popularly known as “West Indies”.
Some more history …
• Emperor Charles V of Spain authorized the Portuguese nobleman Ferdinand
Magellan to reach the Moluccas by sailing around the southern end of the
landmass that Columbus had discovered.
• A small fleet of five ships sailed on September 20, 1519, with 200 people on
board. One year later, on November 28, 1520, the three remaining ships sailed
through a narrow passage (now known as the Straits of Magellan) and entered a
new ocean on a calm and sunny day.
• Accordingly, Magellan and his surviving associates named it the Pacific Ocean.
However, the voyage across the Pacific Ocean was a nightmare because of the
lack of fresh food and water.
• Many crew members died of scurvy (due to lack of Vitamin C) and Magellan
himself was killed in a battle with natives in the Philippines.
• The 18 survivors completed the first circumnavigation of the Earth and returned
to Seville in 1522 AD after three years at sea.
Recent History
• All of the expeditions of the fifteenth to the seventeenth centuries were
motivated primarily by the desire for wealth and power. The exploration of
the Earth that resulted from these voyages was an unintended byproduct
• Not until the eighteenth century did scientific exploration become a factor
in motivating the expeditions
• In 1763, Captain Louis Antoine de Bougainville of France (1729–1811) led
an expedition to the South Atlantic Ocean and set up a French colony on
the Falkland Islands. Next, he sailed around the world between 1766 and
1769 accompanied by a group of scientists.
• In 1768 the Royal Society of England selected James Cook of Britain (1728–
1779) to command the first scientific expedition to the Pacific Ocean.
James Cook Expeditions
• Cook was ordered to transport a group of British scientists led by Joseph Banks to the
island of Tahiti in order to observe the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun on June
3, 1769.
• Subsequently, he was ordered to sail south to explore the so called Terra Australis. During
this leg of the expedition Cook discovered and circumnavigated New Zealand. He then
crossed the Tasman Sea and, on April 19,1770, discovered the east coast of Australia. On
this voyage he mapped not only the coast of New Zealand but also the Great Barrier Reef
which is still considered to be a serious navigational hazard.
• On his way back to England, Cook passed through the Torres Strait between Timor and
the York peninsula of Australia, stopped briefly in Batavia (i.e., Jakarta) and arrived in
England in 1771 without losing a single member of his crew to scurvy, although 30 men
died of fever and dysentery contracted in Batavia.
• During the second voyage (1772–1775) he entered the Pacific Ocean from the west and
approached the coast of East Antarctica before turning north. He mapped Easter Island
and Tonga and discovered New Caledonia before continuing to cross the Pacific Ocean.
By sailing east around the tip of South America he entered the Atlantic Ocean where he
discovered the South Sandwich Islands and South Georgia Island.
James Cook Expeditions
• During this voyage Cook concluded that the hypothetical Terra Australis existed
only in the form of New Zealand and Australia and that Antarctica was not the
hoped-for oasis of the southern hemisphere.
• During his third and last cruise (1776–1779) Cook again entered the Pacific Ocean
from the west, passed New Zealand and Tahiti before turning north to the
Hawaiian Islands. From there he sailed north along the west coast of North
America into the Bering Strait and entered the Chukchi Sea.
• On his return to Hawaii, Captain Cook was killed on February 14, 1779, during a
skirmish with native Hawaiians on the beach at Kealakekua Bay on the Big Island.
• Scientists on Cook’s ships contributed greatly to the advancement of botany,
zoology, anthropology, and astronomy. Cook’s expeditions were motivated
primarily by the desire to explore the Earth and thereby set a precedent for the
current exploration of the solar system.
20th Century
• We have started using remote sensing techniques to observe the
Earth from the space, which helped us in learning about our planet
from a vantage point that we could not see from the ground
• Sputnik 1 was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an
elliptical low Earth orbit by the USSR on 4 October 1957 as part of the
Soviet space program. It orbited for three weeks before its batteries
died and then orbited silently for two months before it fell back into
the atmosphere on 4 January 1958.
LAGEOS
• The Laser Geodynamics Satellite (Lageos) was launched
May 4, 1976 and placed in a very stable circular orbit of
5,900 kilometers altitude. It was joined in 1992 by
Lageos II.
• Lageos satellites are passive satellites that carry no
electronic equipment or moving parts. The spherical
satellite takes on a golf-ball appearance due to the
“retrocollectors”, three-dimensional prisms that reflect
light back to the source regardless of the angle of the
light received by the satellite.
• With Lageos, scientists have measured the movement
of Earth's tectonic plates, detected irregularities in the
rotation of the planet, weighed it, and tracked small
shifts in its center of mass.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/now-40-nasas-lageos-set-the-bar-for-studies-of-earth
Some more …
• MAGSAT was a sun-synchronous satellite designed to measure the Earth's
magnetic field. It flew from 1979 to 1980, and acquired accurate data on
the direction and strength of the field.
• SEASAT satellite was launched into a polar orbit in 1978, and was designed
to test the capabilities of radar for determining wave height, the amount of
water vapor in the atmosphere, and the roughness of the ocean surface.
Although the satellite lasted only four months, it provided details in radar
images that were useful in ocean as well as land studies.
• The LANDSAT series of spacecraft are designed to look at the surface of the
Earth in different parts of the visible and near-infrared spectrum. Sensors
aboard these satellites have been observing Earth since 1972, aiding in
crop forecasting and environmental monitoring.
• The uninterrupted data also help land managers and policymakers to make
informed decisions about natural resources and the environment.
Going under
• Direct exploration of subsurface regions is so restricted, investigators are
forced to rely extensively on geophysical measurements
• Geophysical techniques involve measuring reflectivity, magnetism, gravity,
acoustic or elastic waves, radioactivity, heat flow, electricity, and
electromagnetism.
• Geophysical mapping depends on the existence of a difference in physical
properties of adjacent bodies of rock—i.e., between whatever is being
sought and those of the surroundings.
• Different methods depend on different physical properties. Which
particular method is used is determined by what is being sought. In most
cases, however, data from a combination of methods rather than from
simply one method yield a much clearer picture.
Magnetic Method
• The oldest magnetic prospecting instrument is the magnetic compass,
which measures the field direction. Other instruments include magnetic
balances and fluxgate magnetometers.
• Most sedimentary rocks have very low susceptibility and thus are nearly
transparent to magnetism. Accordingly, in petroleum exploration
magnetics are used negatively: magnetic anomalies indicate the absence of
explorable sedimentary rocks.
• Magnetics are used for mapping features in igneous and metamorphic
rocks, possibly faults, dikes, or other features that are associated with
mineral concentrations.
• Rocks cannot retain magnetism when the temperature is above the Curie
point (about 500° C for most magnetic materials), and this restricts
magnetic rocks to the upper 40 kilometres of the Earth’s interior.
• It is now believed that convection currents of conducting material in the
outer core generate the field.
Gravity Method
• The gravity field of the Earth can be measured by timing the free fall of an
object in a vacuum, by measuring the period of a pendulum, or in various
other ways. Today almost all gravity surveying is done with gravimeters.
• Gravity differences occur because of local density differences. Data have to
be corrected for variations due to elevation (1 metre is equivalent to about
0.2 mgal), latitude (100 metres are equivalent to about 0.08 mgal), and
other factors.
• Gravity measurements are occasionally used to evaluate the amount of
high-density mineral present in an ore body. They also provide a means of
locating hidden caverns, old mine workings, and other subterranean
cavities such as folds, faults, and salt domes which trap oil
Seismic Method
• Seismic methods are based on measurements of the time interval between
initiation of a seismic (elastic) wave and its arrival at detectors.
• The seismic wave may be generated by an explosion, a dropped weight, a
mechanical vibrator, a bubble of high-pressure air injected into water, or
other sources like Earthquakes
• Two types of seismic waves can travel through a body: P waves (primary)
and S waves (secondary). P waves are compressional waves and travel at
the highest velocity; hence, they arrive first. S waves are shear waves that
travel at a slower rate and are not able to pass through liquids that do not
possess shear strength.
• We determined the outer core is liquid due to S waves non-propagation
thorough liquid
• Most of the current knowledge about the Earth’s internal constitution is
derived from analysis of the time–distance curves from earthquakes.
Electromagnetic Methods
• A multitude of electrical methods are used in mineral exploration. They
depend on (1) electrochemical activity, (2) resistivity changes, or (3)
permittivity effects.
• Some materials tend to become natural batteries that generate natural
electric currents whose effects can be measured.
• The passage of current in the general frequency range of 500–5,000 hertz
(Hz) induces in the Earth electromagnetic waves of long wavelength, which
have considerable penetration into the Earth’s interior.
• Eddy currents are induced where conductors are present, and these
currents generate an alternating magnetic field, which induces in a
receiving coil a secondary voltage that is out of phase with the primary
voltage. Electromagnetic methods involve measuring this out-of-phase
component
Radioactive Methods
• Radioactive surveys are used to detect ores or rock bodies associated
with radioactive materials.
• Most natural radioactivity derives from uranium, thorium, and a
radioisotope of potassium (potassium-40), as well as from radon gas.
• Radioactive elements are concentrated chiefly in the upper portion of
the Earth’s crust.
• Detection is usually of gamma rays, and it is accomplished in most
cases with a scintillometer, a photoconversion device containing a
crystal of sodium iodide that emits a photon when struck by a gamma
ray.
Geothermal and Geochemical Methods
• Temperature-gradient measurements are sometimes made to detect
heat-flow anomalies; however, most exploration for geothermal
resources (e.g., superheated water and steam) is done with indirect
methods.
• Since the early 1970s researchers have developed extremely sensitive
methods of chemical analysis, providing the ability to detect minute
amounts of materials.
• Many chemical elements are transported in very small quantities by
fluids flowing in the Earth, so that a systematic measurement of such
trace elements may help in locating their sources.
Final points
• The overall oblate shape of the Earth was established by French Academy
expeditions between 1735 and 1743.
• The Earth’s mean density and total mass were determined by the English
physicist and chemist Henry Cavendish in about 1797.
• It was later ascertained that the density of rocks on the Earth’s surface is
significantly less than the mean density, leading to the assumption that the
density of the deeper parts of the planet must be much greater.
• The crust–mantle boundary is marked by a fairly large increase in velocity
at the Mohorovičić discontinuity at depths on the order of 25–40
kilometers on the continents and 5–8 kilometers on the seafloor.
• The mantle–core boundary is the Gutenberg discontinuity at a depth of
about 2,800 kilometers.
“
He who can listen to the music in the midst of
noise can achieve great things.

– Vikram Sarabhai
”
Next time …
Exploration of the Solar System