The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Physics of the Earth

(or geophysics), a complex of sciences that deal with the earth, the internal structure and physical properties of the earth, and physical processes that occur in the earth’s solid shells and in the hydrosphere and atmosphere. Some investigators take the term “physics of the earth” to mean the physics of the solid earth, or lithosphere physics.

Depending on the nature of the physical field studied and on the subject matter of an investigation, the physics of the earth may be classified in the following divisions: terrestrial magnetism, gravimetry, seismology, geothermy, hydrophysics, atmospheric physics, geophysical prospecting, and industrial geophysics. (See alsoEARTH, PHYSICS OF THE SEA, and GEOPHYSICAL PROSPECTING METHODS.)

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References in periodicals archive

Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, 1981, v.25, 297-356.

Quantum Gravity Aspects of Global Scaling and the Seismic Profile of the Earth

In the simulation, the Earth's interior was too hot and runny at first to push around giant chunks of crust, researchers report in the June Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors.

Plate tectonics could grind to a halt: shifting crust just 1 stage in Earth's life cycle, study suggests

Ohishi, "Simultaneous volume measurements of Au and MgO to 140 GPa and thermal equation of state of Au based on the MgO pressure scale," Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors, vol.

Analysis of equation of states for the suitability at high pressure: MgO as an example

The Institute of Physics of the Earth, Russian Academy of Sciences, has expressed

IRIS station (US) installed at Garni Geophysical Observatory to also register secret nuclear explosions in the region

Suzuki, "Thermal expansion of periclase and olivine, and their anharmonic properties," Journal of Physics of the Earth, vol.

Analysis of equation of state for carbon nanotubes

Although the 'interplanetary billiards' theory of the Moon's origin, which requires a very small initial Earth-Moon distance, neatly fits some of the geochemical facts and is currently very fashionable for that reason among astronomers and lunar scientists, it is wildly improbable on several other counts and is regarded with great scepticism by at least some geophysicists: Williams, indeed, asserts that his evidence is incompatible with the Moon's ever having been much closer than now (although the present writer can see nothing in his paper which justifies that conclusion); and see Frank Stacey & Paul Davis, Physics of the Earth, 4th edn., Cambridge 2008, pp.

Unroofing the lunar chasms

The experiment is used to study both magnetospheric physics of the Earth and other planets, but also fundamental plasma physics that could one day lead to fusion using so-called "advanced fuels." The experiment only recently came into operation but has already achieved one of its principal goals: the formation of a peaked density profile due to the formation of a low frequency turbulent pinch, in accordance with theory.

Fusion news from MIT

Therefore, an international cooperation is developed under the umbrella of international scientific organizations like European Geosciences Union (EGU), International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG), International Association of Geodesy (ISG), International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth's Interior (IASPEI), International Bureau for Weights and Measures (BIPM), Central European Initiative (CEI) and within the research framework programs of the European Union.

Center of Earth's Dynamics Research in the years 2005-2010

According to environmentalist Bill McKibben, we have altered the basic chemistry and physics of the Earth, and thereby destroyed the very idea of nature.

Bill McKibben and the whippoorwills