Skip all navigation and jump to content Jump to site navigation Jump to section navigation.
NASA Logo - Goddard Space Flight Center + Visit NASA.gov
HOME PROJECTS RESOURCES SEARCH MAP

+ Advanced Search
Home
Home
View Most Recently Released Imagery
View Gallery of Imagery: A topical collection of SVS Imagery
Search Imagery by the keywords assigned to it
Search Imagery by the instruments that supplied data for a visualization product
Search Imagery by the series of visualizations that have been produced
Search Imagery by the scientist providing the data used in a visualization product
Search Imagery by the animator that created the product
Search Imagery by the identification number assigned to the visualization product
See other search options
Learn about the SVS Image Server
  + About the Server
  + Animation List
  + How to Use the Server
blank image
Previous Animation
Next Animation
Volumetric Visualization of the Convection-generated Stresses in Earth

The fundamental problem of the deformation of the Earth involves stress conditions on the basis of the crust caused by the mantle convection. Based on decades of satellite gravity data, a harmonic analytical model of the convection flow has been developed at GSFC. The magnitudes and directions of the resultant stresses in the crust were obtained at 64,000 grid points for each of 18 layers from 150 km to 600 km under the Earth.

In this project, we explored three dimensional volumetric visualization methods for the data. To overcome the typical volumetric visualization obstacles such as enormous amount of data and opacity of objects in the scene, we developed an interactive and transparent isosurface model to render the volumetric data.

a) Animated isosurfaces of earth stress below Hawaii. The blue objects indicate the shape of the stress distribution and the yellow objects indicate the high stress areas.

b) Interactive global earth stress. To view the model, please use the QuickTime Player (similarly, please select the QuickTime version of the movie). Hold the left botton and drag the mouse horizontally to view areas on the earth at the same depth. Hold the left bottom and drag the mouse vertically to view the different layers of the stress distributions inside the earth, between 150 km to 600 km deep.


Animated isosurfaces of earth stress below Hawaii. The blue objects indicate the shape of the stress distribution and the yellow objects indicate the high stress areas.    Animated isosurfaces of earth stress below Hawaii. The blue objects indicate the shape of the stress distribution and the yellow objects indicate the high stress areas.
Duration: 4.8 minutes
Available formats:
  720x480 (29.97 fps) MPEG-2   8 MB
  720x480 (29.97 fps) MPEG-1   6 MB
  361x361 (1 fps) QUICKTIME 3 MB
  320x179     JPEG         3 KB
How to play our movies


Animated isosurfaces of earth stress below Hawaii. The blue objects indicate the shape of the stress distribution and the yellow objects indicate the high stress areas.    Animated isosurfaces of earth stress below Hawaii. The blue objects indicate the shape of the stress distribution and the yellow objects indicate the high stress areas.

Available formats:
  1024 x 768       JPEG 31 KB
  160 x 80           PNG 11 KB
  80 x 40             PNG   3 KB
  320 x 240         JPEG 5 KB

Animation Number:2970
Animators:Yang Cai (Lead)
 Horace Mitchell
 Greg Shirah
 Alex Kekesi
 Stuart A. Snodgrass
Studio:
Completed:2004-08-03
Scientists:Han-Shou Liu (NASA/GSFC)
 Jizhong Chen (unaffiliated)
Instruments:ERS-1
 TOPEX/Poseidon
Data sets:EGM96
 TRANET
Keywords:
SVS >> Earth
SVS >> Earthquake
GCMD >> EARTH SCIENCE >> Solid Earth >> Geodetics/Gravity >> Gravitational Field
GCMD >> EARTH SCIENCE >> Solid Earth >> Tectonics >> Stress
Science paper:Han-Shou Liu, Ronald Kolenkiewicz, Jinling Li and Jizhong Chen, 'Satellite Detection of the Convection Generated Stresses in Earth,' Recent Research and Development in Geophysics, 5(2003): 117-137; Han-Shou Liu, Ronald Kolenkiewicz, Jizhong Chen, Jinling Li, Yang Cai and Clarence Wade, Jr.,'Satellite Seek Gravity Signals for Probing Seismotectonic Stresses in Earth,' to be published
 
 
Please give credit for this item to
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Scientific Visualization Studio, Patty Pun, Carnegie Mellon University and Jason Fung, Carnegie Mellon University.


Back to Top

USA.gov logo - the U.S. Government's official Web portal. + Privacy Policy and Important Notices
+ Reproduction Guidelines
NASA NASA Official:
SVS Contact:
Curator: