venus topography a harmonic analysis a model of venusian global topography has been obtained by fitting an eighteenth degree harmonic series to pioneer venus orbiter radar altimeter data the mean radius is 6051 45 0 04 km the corresponding mean density is 5244 8 0 5 kg m 3 the center of figure is displaced from the center of mass by 0 339 0 088 km towards 6 6 10 1 n 148 8 7 7 e the figure of venus is distinctly triaxial but the orientation and magnitudes of the principal topographic axes correlate rather poorly with the gravitational principal axes however the higher degree harmonics of topography and gravity are significantly correlated the topographic variance spectrum of venus is very similar in form to those of the moon mars and especially earth we suggest that this spectral similarity simply reflects a statistical balance between constructional and degradational geomorphic processes venus and earth are particularly similar and differ from the moon and mars in that the larger bodies both exhibit a significant low degree deficit relative to the extrapolated trend of the higher harmonics

high resolution gravity model of venus the anomalous gravity field of venus shows high correlation with surface features revealed by radar we extract gravity models from the doppler tracking data from the pioneer venus orbiter pvo by means of a two step process in the first step we solve the nonlinear spacecraft state estimation problem using a kalman filter smoother the kalman filter has been evaluated through simulations this evaluation and some unusual features of the filter are discussed in the second step we perform a geophysical inversion using a linear bayesian estimator to allow an unbiased comparison between gravity and topography we use a simulation technique to smooth and distort the radar topographic data so as to yield maps having the same characteristics as our gravity maps the maps presented cover 2 3 of the surface of venus and display the strong topography gravity correlation previously reported the topography gravity scatter plots show two distinct trends

constraints on the venusian crustal thickness variations in the isostatic stagnant lid approximation 1 the isostatic stagnant lid isl approximation is applied to the long wavelength venusian topography and geoid to place constraints on the thickness of the crust and lithosphere previous studies showed that a purely thermal isostasy model of the lithosphere the stagnant lid accounts for a significant portion of the topography and geoid anomalies here we assume that the remaining discrepancy between the observed and model geoid is due to crustal thickness variations and that the crust the lithosphere and the mantle are in a state of double isostatic equilibrium the lithosphere is isostatically floating on top of the mantle and the crust is isostatically floating on top of the lithosphere the addition of another variable the crustal thickness allows an exact fit to the observed topography and geoid this also makes the solution non unique an exact fit to topography and geoid can be achieved in a broad range of average lithospheric and crustal thicknesses additional constraints such as the gabbro eclogite phase transition and the existence of relatively young volcanism limit this range to some extent the inferred variations in the crustal thickness are less sensitive to model assumptions and generally agree with the results obtained in previous studies

development patterns and controlling factors of tertiary carbonate buildups insights from high resolution 3d seismic and well data in the malampaya gas field offshore palawan philippines abstract the comprehensive subsurface database of the malampaya buildup late eocene to early miocene offshore nw palawan provides a rare insight into the development of south east asian cenozoic carbonate systems and their controlling factors the newly acquired high resolution three dimensional seismic survey combined with facies and well log analysis allowed a better understanding of the internal architecture of a carbonate platform whose development was largely controlled by tectonic deformation the malampaya carbonate system was initiated in the late eocene as an attached shelf influenced by significant clastic input the late eocene early oligocene shelf was subject to syn depositional extensional tectonics eastward tilting and block faulting that favoured the development of small size buildups on structural highs after a stage of eastward reef progradation an aggrading carbonate shelf frequently affected by subaerial exposure developed from the earliest late oligocene to the early miocene during this period recurrent reactivation of highs along the western and northeastern buildup margins determined the asymmetric morphology and internal architecture of the carbonate system the final demise of the carbonate buildup occurred in the late early miocene it resulted from an increase in subsidence rate and or a sharp increase in nutrient input additional parameters like eustacy oceanographic conditions and the type of carbonate producers played a subordinate role in the buildup development and ultimate demise

play concepts northwest palawan philippines abstract the offshore area of northwest palawan philippines contains a number of provenexploration plays these include u pinnacle reefs developed on nido carbonate platforms e g nido matinloc cadlao a seaward horst block reef fairway with large pinnacle reefs e g malampaya camago trend early miocene galoc clastic unit turbidites e g octon galoc and four way dip closures e g west linapacan octon the recent discovery by fletcher challenge petroleum at calauit field has shown a potentialexploration play in deep water nido limestone turbidites the traditional and to date only economically productive play in northwest palawan has been the nido limestone reefs this paper presents a review of the old play types and presents new untested play types these new play types include u pre nido syn rift plays pre nido marine turbidite play and mid miocene reefs it also presents new insights into factors controlling reef development on the carbonate platforms where four reef types are now recognized the galoc clastic unit turbidite play is discussed and new play fairways presented

a refined gravity model from lageos gem l2 a refined gravity field model goddard earth model gem l2 has been derived using the lageos orbital data yielding better baseline measurements for the analysis of tectonic plate motion this field also contributes to an improved understanding of long wavelength features such as the sea slope across broad ocean basins through its significant improvement of the long wavelength geoid through degree and order 4 the geoid for these terms has an accuracy estimated at 8 cm in gem l2 gem l2 as in all recent goddard earth models relies heavily on the precise near earth satellite laser ranging data in this case provided by nasa s crustal dynamics program two and a half years of lageos laser data acquired from over 20 well distributed stations were combined with the existing data from the best satellite derived model gem 9 to develop the new lageos model testing shows that the lageos gravity field error at long wavelengths is less than half that for gem 9 independent tests using well determined longitude accelerations of 24 hour satellites have verified the improved accuracy of the new model a comparison of global laser base stations from independent data sets of alternating 15 day data segments over the 2 1 2 years of lageos show total inter station positioning to 1 8 cm when using this new field the same comparison using the 1979 versus the 1980 lageos data yields 5 2 cm this difference in agreement reflects the change in data distribution and other systematic errors along with the tectonic motion which has occurred between these chronologically distinguishable data sets five day average polar motion values with a precision of 10 cm and change in length of day values accurate to better than 5 msec have been derived in the solution the adjustment of these parameters are necessary to achieve the accurate stations and geopotential results in gem l2

geological correlations with the interior density structure of venus a model has been constructed by stipulating that venusian long wavelength topography and geoid elevations are explained by the sum of density anomalies associated with mantle convection and lithospheric compensation mechanisms for convenience the latter are represented by a single airy surface because individual lithospheric components cannot be resolved at the wavelengths considered in this paper mantle convection is represented at a single depth by mass perturbations that drive viscous flow we invert spherical harmonic representations of the topography and the geoid to create global representations of the mantle convection pattern and near surface density anomalies the mantle convection pattern matches well with previous numerical simulations of mantle convection that show a pattern of isolated upwellings amidst an interconnected network of downwellings the near surface density anomalies show no particular pattern the inversion results have been compared with a global synthesis of magellan data impact crater density does not correlate with the mantle convection pattern or the near surface density anomalies large volcanic structures are associated with upwellings planitiae are associated with downwellings coronae are anticorrelated with high amplitude upwellings and downwellings and apparently are passive features associated with rifting that is related to mantle convection in a complex fashion tesserae are associated with negative lithospheric density anomalies interpreted as areas of thickened crust tesserae show no definitive relationship to the present mantle convection pattern

tectonics and evolution of venus the global tectonics of venus differs significantly from that of earth most markedly in that the surface is covered predominately by gently rolling terrain there apparently are no features like ocean rises the gravity is positively correlated with topography at all wavelengths and the few highlands are estimated to be supported or compensated at a depth of approximately 100 kilometers the surface of venus appears to be covered mainly by an ancient crust the high surface temperature making subduction difficult it seems likely that well over 1 billion years ago water was destabilized at the surface and soon after plate tectonics ceased the highlands appear to be actively supported presumably as manifestations of long enduring hot spots

aspherical earth structure from fundamental spheroidal mode data free oscillation data reveal heterogeneity in the earth s mantle whose geographical pattern is dominated by spherical harmonics of angular degree two and correlates well with the hydrostatically referenced geoid the heterogeneity can be modelled as localized in the transition zone 420 670 km depth and may be related to a large scale component of mantle convection

correction of the sea state impact in the l band brightness temperature by means of delay doppler maps of global navigation satellite signals reflected over the sea surface this paper presents an efficient procedure based on 2 d convolutions to obtain delay doppler maps ddms of global navigation satellite signals reflected gnss r over the sea surface and collected by a spaceborne receiver two ddm derived observables area and volume are proposed to link the sea state induced brightness temperature to the measured normalized ddm finally the requirements to use global positioning system reflectometry to accurately correct for the sea state impact on the l band brightness temperature quantization levels decimation truncation and noise impact are analyzed in view of its implementation in the passive advanced unit instrument of the spanish earth observation satellite seosat ingenio project

advances in carbonate exploration and reservoir analysis carbonate reservoirs contain an increasingly important percentage of the world s hydrocarbon reserves this volume presents key recent advances in carbonate exploration and reservoir analysis as well as a comprehensive overview of the trends in carbonate over the years the volume focuses on four key areas 1 emerging plays and techniques with special reference to lacustrine plays in syn rift basins and development of super giant heavy oil plays 2 improved reservoir characterization with examples from the middle east and europe and case studies of how outcrop analogues can provide key data for input to geological models 3 impact of fractures and faults in carbonates contributors highlight the need for integrated structural and diagenetic approaches in order to understand how fractures evolve as fluid flow conduits 4 advances in geomodelling of carbonate reservoirs several papers discuss the application of new and innovative geomodelling and geostatistical techniques to carbonate reservoirs

fundamental issues in the geology and geophysics of venus a number of important and currently unresolved issues in the global geology and geophysics of venus will be addressable with the radar imaging altimetry and gravity measurements now forthcoming from the magellan mission among these are the global volcanic flux and the rate of formation of new crust the global heat flux and its regional variations the relative importance of localized hot spots and linear centers of crustal spreading to crustal formation and tectonics and the planform of mantle convection on venus and the nature of the interactions among interior convective flow near surface deformation and magmatism

sequential processing of gnss r delay doppler maps to estimate the ocean surface wind field spaceborne global navigation satellite system reflectometry gnss r measurements of ocean winds present a challenge because the surface wind speed cannot be assumed homogeneous over the large glistening zone observable from orbit the 25 km resolution requirement of the cyclone gnss cygnss mission limits wind speed retrievals to using only a small fraction of the delay doppler map ddm near the specular point this paper presents a new method to invert a larger portion of the ddm and estimate the wind field within a swath defined by the maximum delay an extended kalman filter ekf is applied to combine a series of ddms and estimates the wind speed on a uniformly gridded ocean surface exploiting the large overlap between sequential looks wind retrievals at the specular point using simulated data generated using wind fields from two hurricanes danielle and earl 2010 were found to meet the cygnss measurement requirements 2 m s for u 20 m s and perform better than a typical single point observable wind retrievals were also found to meet these requirements below 20 m s within a 90 km swath and meet them for hurricane force winds 17 times 11 ddm demonstrating benefits of sequential processing within a limited data budget delay doppler ambiguities introduced noticeable artifacts in circumstances where the wind varies asymmetrically within the observed 90 times 90 km surface area but did not appear to affect specular point wind retrievals

the modern geoid and ancient plate boundaries abstract the non hydrostatic geoid is dominated by three large anomalies an area of high gravity potential in the equatorial pacific another stretching from greenland through africa to the southwest indian ocean and a semi continuous low region passing from hudson s bay through siberia to india and on to antarctica none of these three high amplitude greater than 60 m and long wavelength anomalies corresponds to present day plate boundaries however if the modern geoid is plotted over the positions of continents and plate boundaries at 125 ma b p reconstructed relative to hotspots a strong correlation emerges the modern geoidal low corresponds in position to the areas of subduction surrounding the pacific 125 ma ago the geoidal high now centered on africa is entirely contained within ancient pangaea and the equatorial pacific high overlies the location of the spreading centers preserved in the magnetic anomalies of the central pacific the most plausible cause of the large geoidal undulations is lower mantle convection only weakly coupled to plate motions the correspondence between modern geoid and ancient plate boundaries implies either that the coupling was much more intimate in the past or that there is a lag of at least 100 ma in response of the lower mantle to upper mantle conditions

the petroleum potential of deep water northwestpalawan block gsec 66 abstract this paper presents the results of the evaluation of the petroleum potential of thedeep water acreage of philodrill gsec 66 or what the authors call the northwest malampaya block all the elements necessary for a major hydrocarbon accumulation are believed to be present in the block probable source rocks are the deep water nido limestone the pre nido early tertiary syn rift section and pre tertiary sediments potential reservoirs include the nido reefal buildups nido and pre nido detrital and or fractured carbonates early miocene galoc elastic equivalent turbidites and pre nido sediments the principal play types recognized in the area are the late oligocene to early miocene reefs and the erosional karsted carbonate highs after evaluation of available pre 1982 seismic data an acquisition program of 1625 km was undertaken eleven leads prospects were delineated in the area after the interpretation of this new seismic data two prospects were upgraded to drillable status the santa monica prospect and the ipil prospect the santa monica prospect is a well defined four way dip closure on the nido limestone with a vertical closure of over 1500 feet and an areal closure of over 20 500 acres the ipil prospect is a gently closed feature developed at the nido limestone platform level with an areal closure of over 11 600 acres and a vertical relief of 400 feet the technical merits of the delineated huge prospects combined with the very favorable deep water exploration terms of the philippines and their proximity to the soon to be developed malampaya camago field make this block a very promising area for further exploration work

generalized linear observables for ocean wind retrieval from calibrated gnss r delay doppler maps the cyclone global navigation satellite system cygnss mission will use global navigation satellite system reflectometry to measure ocean surface winds in and near the hurricane inner core including regions beneath the eye wall which could not previously be measured from space due to intense precipitation the cygnss constellation will consist of eight small satellite observatories in 500 km circular orbits at an inclination of 35 cygnss observatories will receive both direct and reflected signals from global positioning system satellites direct signals will be used both for conventional navigation of the observatory positions and for calibration of the incident signal power reflected signals respond to ocean surface roughness from which wind speed is retrieved this is observed as changes in a delay doppler map ddm a generalized observable which is defined as a linear combination of the ddm samples is optimized using three different methods maximum signal to noise ratio minimum variance of the wind speed and principal component analysis pca performance of each of these three approaches is compared with each other and with that of the baseline level 2 retrievals defined for cygnss ddm average leading edge slope and the minimum variance combination of both pca is found to have the best performance

the eddy experiment gnss r speculometry for directional sea roughness retrieval from low altitude aircraft we report the retrieval of sea surface directional mean square slope from global navigation satellite system reflections gnss r delay doppler map ddm data collected during an experimental flight at 1 km altitude we emphasize the utilization of the entire ddm to more precisely infer ocean roughness directional parameters and argue that the ddm exhibits the impact of both roughness and scatterer velocity obtained estimates are analyzed and compared with jason 1 measurements ecmwf numerical weather model outputs and optical data

effect of sea roughness on bistatically scattered range coded signals from the global positioning system a series of aircraft experiments was performed using a specialized gps receiver and a nadir oriented left hand circularly polarized antenna this apparatus received reflections of the gps signals from water surfaces under a variety of sea states the cross correlation between the reflected signal and a reference pseudo random noise code was recorded as a function of the relative time delay the shape of this function showed a dependence on the roughness of the reflecting surface this dependence generally followed that predicted by theory for bistatic scattering of range coded signals use of this information as a remote sensing technique for the determination of sea state is discussed

geoid anomalies and dynamic topography from convection in cylindrical geometry applications to mantle plumes on earth and venus summary a variety of evidence suggests that at least some hotspots are formed by quasi cylindrical mantle plumes upwelling from deep in the mantle we model such plumes in cylindrical axisymmetric geometry with depth dependent newtonian viscosity cylindrical and sheet like cartesian upwellings have significantly different geoid and topography signatures however rayleigh number nusselt number systematics in the two geometries are quite similar the geoid anomaly and topographic uplift over a plume are insensitive to the viscosity of the surface layer provided that it is at least 1000 times the interior viscosity increasing the rayleigh number or including a low viscosity asthenosphere decreases the geoid anomaly and the topographic uplift associated with an upwelling plume increasing the aspect ratio increases both the geoid anomaly and the topographic uplift of a plume the nusselt number is a weak function of the aspect ratio with its maximum value occurring at an aspect ratio of slightly less than 1

volcanism and tectonics on venus we review recent developments in the study of volcanism and tectonics on venus venus s crust is basaltic dry and probably about 30 km thick the mantle convects giving rise to plumes and has a similar composition and mean temperature 1300 c but a higher viscosity 10 20 pa s than that of the earth inferred melt generation rates constrain the lithospheric thickness to between 80 and 200 km the elastic thickness of the lithosphere is about 30 km on average the present day lack of plate tectonics may be due to strong faults and the high viscosity of the mantle most of the differences between earth and venus processes can be explained by the absence of water venus underwent a global resurfacing event 300 600 ma ago the cause and nature of which remains uncertain the present day surface heat flux on venus is about half the likely radiogenic heat generation rate which suggests that venus has been heating up since the resurfacing event

scattering of gps signals from the ocean with wind remote sensing application a theoretical model that describes the power of a scattered global positioning system gps signal as a function of geometrical and environmental parameters has been developed this model is based on a bistatic radar equation derived using the geometric optics limit of the kirchhoff approximation the waveform i e the time delayed power obtained in the delay mapping technique depends on a wave slope probability density function which in turn depends on wind waveforms obtained for aircraft altitudes and velocities indicate that altitudes within the interval 5 15 km are the best for inferring wind speed in some regimes an analytical solution for the bistatic radar equation is possible this solution allows converting trailing edges of waveforms into a set of straight lines which could be convenient for wind retrieval a transition to satellite altitudes together with satellite velocities makes the peak power reduction and the doppler spreading effect a significant problem for wind retrieval based on the delay mapping technique at the same time different time delays and different doppler shifts of the scattered gps signal could form relatively small spatial cells on sea surface suggesting mapping of the wave slope probability distribution in a synthetic aperture radar sar fashion this may allow more accurate measurements of wind velocity and wind direction

subducted slabs and the geoid constraints on mantle rheology and flow geoid anomalies are primarily the result of the density contrasts driving mantle convection and plate motion the total geoid anomaly resulting from a given density contrast in a convecting earth is affected by the mass anomalies associated with the flow induced deformation of the upper surface and internal compositional boundaries as well as by the density contrast itself these boundary deformations and hence the total gravity field depend on the radial distribution of effective viscosity if the internal density contrasts can be estimated as is the case for subducted slabs useful constraints can be placed on the depth and on the variation of viscosity with depth of the convecting system the degree 4 9 components of the observed long wavelength geoid are highly correlated with those predicted by a density model for seismically active subducted slabs the positive sign of the correlation requires that the effective viscosity increases with depth by a factor of 30 or more the amplitude of the correlation cannot be explained by the density contrasts associated with just the seismically active parts of subducted slabs however the amplitude can be explained if the density contrasts associated with subduction extend into the lower mantle or if old lithosphere is piled up at the base of the upper mantle beneath subduction zones to a thickness in excess of 350 km over horizontal distances of thousands of kilometers mantlewide convection in a mantle that has a viscosity increasing with depth provides a simple explanation of the long wavelength geoid anomalies over subduction zones

a dynamic model of venus s gravity field unlike earth long wavelength gravity anomalies and topography correlate well on venus venus s admittance curve from spherical harmonic degree 2 to 18 is inconsistent with either airy or pratt isostasy but is consistent with dynamic support from mantle convection a model using whole mantle flow and a high viscosity near surface layer overlying a constant viscosity mantle reproduces this admittance curve on earth the effective viscosity deduced from geoid modeling increases by a factor of 300 from the asthenosphere to the lower mantle these viscosity estimates may be biased by the neglect of lateral variations in mantle viscosity associated with hot plumes and cold subducted slabs the different effective viscosity profiles for earth and venus may reflect their convective styles with tectonism and mantle heat transport dominated by hot plumes on venus and by subducted slabs on earth convection at degree 2 appears much stronger on earth than on venus a degree 2 convective structure may be unstable on venus but may have been stabilized on earth by the insulating effects of the pangean supercontinental assemblage

geological significance of seismic reflections and imaging of the reservoir architecture in the malampaya gas field philippines the integration of petrographic analyses of cores and thin sections petrophysical measurements and well logs demonstrates that variations in acoustic impedance in the malampaya buildup upper eocene to lower miocene offshore northwest palawan are related to vertical changes in porosity and pore type which are dominantly controlled by diagenetic processes the nido limestone was subdivided into 10 50 m 30 150 ft thick units characterized by specific diagenetic patterns and petrophysical properties diagenetic units the alternation between tight and porous diagenetic units is mainly controlled by meteoric diagenesis leaching and pedogenesis and by late burial cementation and leaching well to seismic ties show that the main seismic reflectors within the buildup interior reflect the boundaries between diagenetic units most of the negative amplitude reflectors are related to unconformities whereas positive amplitude reflectors have a more questionable chronostratigraphic value and may represent the bases of cemented lenses that can crosscut time lines comparison with other southeast asian tertiary buildups indicates different origins of seismic reflections related to distinct patterns of diagenetic evolution the identification of such seismodiagenetic units and of their controlling factors is of paramount importance for the architecture and the petrophysical characterization of carbonate reservoirs

global isostatic geoid anomalies for plate and boundary layer models of the lithosphere abstract isostatic geoid anomalies are usually interpreted using a flat earth one dimensional idealization isostatic anomalies on the spherical self gravitating earth differ from this idealization because 1 degree one terms in the spherical harmonic expansion vanish 2 each term in the spherical harmonic expansion is multiplied by l 2 l 0 5 relative to the flat earth case 3 mass in cones rather than straight sided columns is constant and 4 further deformation of the earth is induced by the gravitational attraction of the deformation caused by the isostatic potential anomaly when the effect of each of these is quantified the second third and fourth nearly cancel leaving the degree one over the horizon effect providing the most important difference calculations of model isostatic geoid anomalies for the spherical analogues developed here of the plate and boundary layer thermal models show that this effect can bias estimates of geoid slopes by over 20 although the effect is usually less than 5 the geoid anomalies for these two models are quite different over old ocean basins but they are unlikely to be distinguishable on the basis of global geoid observations owing to the presence of other larger perturbations in the geoid stripping the effects of plate aging and a hypothetical uniform 35 km thick isostatically compensated continental crust from the observed geoid emphasizes that the largest amplitude geoid anomaly is the geoid low of almost 120 m over west antarctica this anomaly is a factor of two greater in amplitude than the low of 60 m over sri lanka

tests of crustal divergence models for aphrodite terra venus aphrodite terra the largest highland region of venus is a likely site of mantle upwelling active volcanism and extensional tectonics we examine three alternative kinematic models for the interaction of mantle convection and the surface one in which little horizontal surface displacement results from mantle flow vertical tectonics one in which shear strain from large horizontal displacements is accommodated only in narrow zones of deformation plate divergence and one in which strain from large horizontal motions is broadly accommodated distributed deformation in support of a divergent plate model for aphrodite head and crumpler have cited the presence of an organized system of lineaments held to be analogues to oceanic fracture zones small scale bilateral symmetry of topographic elements hypothesized to be rifted and separated relief analogous to some terrestrial oceanic plateaus and subsidence of topography proportional to the square root of distance consistent with that expected for a divergent thermal boundary layer we undertake quantitative tests of each of these assertions and we compare the results with those from similar tests of the mid atlantic ridge we find that apart from the long wavelength symmetry of broadly elevated regions there is no convincing evidence for regional bilateral symmetry of features several hundred kilometers in size on either planet the fit of the topography of aphrodite to that of a thermal boundary layer is in general much poorer than for the earth and so other mechanisms such as dynamic uplift or crustal thickness variations must dominate the topography the broad saddle shaped region between thetis and atla regiones shows the best fit to the root distance relation yielding apparent spreading half rates of a few centimeters per year but the goodness of fit and apparent spreading rates are quite sensitive to the distance range analyzed calculation of a single pole of relative motion for the entire postulated system of transform faults shows that the inferred fracture zone traces are not consistent with a simple two plate model regardless of past pole motions a multiple plate geometry is therefore called for and one or more of the lineaments must act as a plate boundary along nearly its full length if the plate divergence hypothesis is correct such a boundary would be distinguishable from other lineaments by geological evidence for recent nontransform motion in forthcoming magellan radar images in the absence of such evidence as long as the existence and distribution of the lineaments are verified then broad disruption of a thin lithosphere is favored in such a model lineaments may be surface manifestations of mantle convective flow a model dominated by primarily vertical tectonics is tenable only if the lineaments are not confirmed by magellan

gravity field of venus at constant altitude and comparison with earth the acceleration gravity anomaly estimates by spacecraft tracking determined from doppler residuals are components of the gravity field directed along the spacecraft earth line of sight los these data constitute a set of vector components of a planet s gravity field the specific component depending upon where the earth happened to be at the time of each measurement and they are at varying altitudes above the planet surface from this data set we have solved for the gravity field using the method of harmonic splines which imposes a smoothness criterion to select a gravity model compatible with the los data maps of geoid and gravity at spacecraft and at constant altitudes are presented for the planet venus for venus the major geoid and gravity anomalies each coincide spatially with the locations of positive topographic features these anomalies at 300 km altitude have significantly greater magnitude than anomalies that on earth are coincident with topographic features another striking difference is that most of the major geoid anomalies on the earth do not coincide with locations of its largest topographic features including continents but are due to deep sources on venus major mass anomalies appear to be restricted principally to the surficial 200 km of the planet a substantially thicker crust on venus 70 80 km compared to the earth s 5 40 km can explain its greater range of gravity anomaly and the positive correlation of gravity anomaly withtopographic height four regions with high gravity to topography response functions are interpreted to be due to crustal loading by recent volcanism perhaps combined with regional elevation of surface topography by thermal expansion from heating at depth

integrated 3 d reservoir modeling based on 3 d seismic the tertiary malampaya and camago buildups offshore palawan philippines three dimensional 3 d seismic interpretation and drilling results indicate complex sedimentary geometries of the malampaya and camago build ups offshore palawan philippines with localized progradation due to unidirectional offbank transport alternating with vertical aggradation successive reduction of size during buildup growth and backstepping of the protected landward margin in response to transgression ultimately appear to have triggered the demise of carbonate production and platform drowning the shallow water platform top sediments repeatedly show signs of subaerial exposure before reflooding a modeling functionality was developed to allow development of multiple scenario 3 d reservoir models in an exploration or appraisal stage the model enables merging of seismic scale observations based on 3 d volume and horizon analyses with subseismic scale information from well data however inherent noise within the seismic data introduced by the complex buildup morphology has resulted in inconsistent attribute distribution and fault dimming these difficulties are compounded by erratic velocity distribution within the limestone nonhyperbolic move out and a narrow relatively low frequency spectrum all of which prevent the use of the 3 d seismic volume as hard data but rather allow its use as a soft constraint for guiding the geological interpretation and ultimately the modeling process seismic data quality in such complex morphologic settings and scarcity of well data hamper greatly the use of geostatistically driven modeling approaches therefore a new functionality was developed within shell s proprietary integrated 3 d modeling suite geocap which allows deterministic model reservoirs using seismic horizon and volume interpretation sequence and cyclo stratigraphic architecture and the concept of reservoir rock type seismic velocity in clean carbonate formations is predominantly a function of porosity distribution to assess time to depth conversion uncertainty the reservoir rock type based models were first produced in the time domain only after differential 3 d depth conversion of these models could the scenarios be reconstructed in the depth domain the depth models subsequently were used to derive permeability and saturation 3 d distortions and thus hydrocarbon volumes for each deterministic scenario the models were then used for simulation purposes

gravity topography and crustal evolution of venus abstract the gravity anomalies of venus although small by comparison with those on mars and the moon are still much larger than those on earth for large features on venus even the low degree spherical harmonic terms for venus gravity field indicate a close association of broad positive gravity anomalies with major topographic highs this is striking contrast to the situation on earth where the broad regional gravity anomalies show little correlation with continental masses or plate tectonic features but instead appear to be caused by deep mass anomalies a method for estimating radial gravity anomalies from line of sight acceleration data their interpolation and use of iteration for improved radial anomaly estimates is outlined a preliminary gravity anomaly map of venus at spacecraft altitude prepared using first estimate values is presented a profile across the western part of aphrodite along longitude 85 e was analyzed using time series techniques an elastic plate model would require a plate thickness of about 180 to 200 km to match the general amplitude of the observed gravity anomaly about 33 mgal a thickness much greater than that found for earth structures and because of high surface temperatures unlikely for venus an airy isostatic model convolved with the topography across aphrodite however provides a better match between the predicted and observed gravity anomalies if the nominal crustal thickness is about 70 to 80 km this thickness is over twice that for continental crust on the earth and considerably greater than that of the earth s basaltic ocean crust only 5 km a different differentiation history for venus than that of the earth thus is anticipated high gravity anomalies 110 mgal occur over beta regio and over the topographic high in eastern aphrodite both highs are associated with regions where detected lightning is clustered and thus the topographic features may be active volcanic constructs the large gravity anomalies at these two sites of volcanic activity require an explanation different than that indicated for western aphrodite

the spin and inertia of venus one of the most remarkable rotational features of venus is the presence of a relatively large offset between spin and maximum inertia axis according to the most recent gravity field models this offset may amount to 0 5 considerably larger than the one which characterizes the earth s chandler wobble 0 3 at present it is not clear whether the offset of venus is the result of the limited resolution of the gravity models or alternatively it may be regarded as an evidence in support to the existence of a wobble purpose of this note is to demonstrate on quantitative grounds that an offset between spin axis and maximum inertia axis is to be expected on the time scales of mantle convection due to the peculiar rotational characteristics of venus we also show that the inertia perturbation associated to the rising of hot thermal plumes from the core mantle boundary to the surface is large enough to maintain offsets ranging between 0 1 and 1 of course this does not preclude that other processes such as venusquakes or periodic atmospheric variabilities may contribute significantly to the observed offset on shorter time scales

computer aided well log correlation 1 we have devised a computer aided well log correlation scheme using sequence comparisons originally developed for molecular biology and dynamic programming technique employed in operations research the combination of these two methods is known as dynamic waveform matching dwm problems encountered in machine correlation of well logs e g bed thickness changes stratigraphic gaps pinch outs etc may be resolved by dwm we have coded a program xcorr to implement our scheme manual or machine zonation of the logs is performed first then log attributes depth amplitude shape etc of two logs are compared and matched in a pass each matching cycle comprises three passes thus ensuring optimal global not local correlation we found good correspondence between g ologic structures and path diagrams which are the resulting matrix from the dynamic programming algorithm example logs both synthetic and real demonstrate the applicability and efficacy of our approach

paleoenvironments and high frequency cyclicity from cenozoic south east asian shallow water carbonates a case study from the oligo miocene buildups of malampaya offshore palawan philippines abstract the combination of core and cuttings analyses and well log data from the late oligocene early miocene carbonate buildup in the malampaya gas field offshore palawan philippines allowed the recognition of shelf depositional paleoenvironments and the definition of high frequency metre scale subtidal cycles usually bounded by exposure surfaces this is amongst the first documentation of short term platform top evolution of oligo miocene carbonates in response to high frequency relative sea level change described in south east asia during the late oligocene the malampaya carbonate buildup is interpreted as an isolated platform rimmed by a barrier reef system that has developed vertically according to the keep up mode with no significant evidence for retardation in reef development during rises in relative sea level during the early miocene the isolated platform was affected by more open conditions in its inner part due to the inability of the reef to catch up with relative sea level rises strontium isotope derived estimations of cycle durations despite a relatively high degree of uncertainty in their calculation are consistent with 4th to 5th order cyclicity 10 1000 ky

a mantle plume model for the equatorial highlands of venus the equatorial highlands of venus consist of four main structures atla beta ovda and thetis regiones each has a circular to oval shaped planform and rises 4 5 km above the mean planetary radius these highlands are associated with long wavelength geoid highs with amplitudes ranging from 35 m at ovda to 120 m at atla they also contain topographic valleys interpreted as extensional rift zones and beta is known to contain shield volcanoes these characteristics are all consistent with the equatorial highlands being formed by mantle plumes an alternative model in which ovda and thetis are interpreted as spreading centers analogous to terrestrial mid ocean ridges fails to explain most of the observed geoid anomalies and topography in these regions some smaller highlands such as bell regio eistla regio and the hathor innini ushas region may also be plume related but most coronae are unlikely to be the direct result of plume activity we have modeled plumes using a cylindrical axisymmetric finite element code and a depth dependent newtonian rheology we compare our model results with profiles of geoid and topography across atla beta ovda and thetis our best model fits are for beta and atla assuming whole mantle convection and that earth and venus have similar mantle heat flows venus must lack an earth like low viscosity zone in its upper mantle in order satisfy the observed geoid and topography for these features this conclusion is consistent with the long wavelength admittance spectrum of venus and with the observed differences in the slopes of the geoid spectra for the two planets one explanation for the different viscosity structures of the two planets could be that the mantle of venus is drier than earth s mantle

geoid anomalies in a dynamic earth in order to obtain a dynamically consistent relationship between the geoid and the earth s response to internal buoyancy forces we have calculated potential and surface deformation love numbers for internal loading these quantities depend on the depth and harmonic degree of loading they can be integrated as green functions to obtain the dynamic response due to an arbitrary distribution of internal density contrasts spherically symmetric self gravitating flow models are constructed for a variety of radial newtonian viscosity variations and flow configurations including both whole mantle and layered convection we demonstrate that boundary deformation due to internal loading reaches its equilibrium value on the same time scale as postglacial rebound much less than the time scale for significant change in the convective flow pattern by calculating relaxation times for a series of spherically symmetric viscous earth models for uniform mantle viscosity the geoid signature due to boundary deformations is larger than that due to internal loads resulting in net negative geoid anomalies for positive density contrasts geoid anomalies from intermediate wavelength density contrasts are amplified by up to an order of magnitude geoid anomalies are primarily the result of density contrasts in the interior of convecting layers density contrasts near layer boundaries are almost completely compensated layered mantle convection results in smaller geoid anomalies than mantle wide flow for a given density contrast viscosity stratification leads to more complicated spectral signatures because of the sensitivity of the dynamic response functions to model parameters forward models for the geoid can be used to combine several sources of geophysical data e g subducted slab locations seismic velocity anomalies surface topography to constrain better the structure and viscosity of the mantle