Alaska, NNR lithosphere motion     This image of Alaska starts with one of my favorite texture underlays for Earth: topography in greytone (but no extra relief enhancement by shading). It makes a great underlay for colored point-like and vector-like datasets, like the GSRM model lithosphere motion vectors, here in the "no net rotation" frame. This shows the collision zone between the Pacific plate (center bottom) and the North America plate (top, left and right) in southern Alaska. By the way, this map also has exactly the same scale as the map for the western USA above.

Another interesting tidbit of information while looking at this image has to do with tides. Tidal dissipation, or the loss of gravitational energy, in the Earth-Moon system is estimated to be about 4 TW (terawatts). The bulk of this energy loss occurs in the oceans, but not in the deep oceans; rather, most energy loss is in the shallow seas. The Bering Sea (between the Bering Strait and the Aleutians) is estimated to be responsible for about 0.07 TW of the energy loss.

Comments, questions, problems about Jules Verne Voyager? Send mail to Lou Estey
(louunavco.org)