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SEISMIC REFRACTION TRAVELTIME TOMOGRAPHY PROCESSING OF APOLLO 14 AND 16 ACTIVE SEISMIC EXPERIMENT DATA

Rui Moura

Abstract

The American NASA Apollo missions to the lunar surface, between 1969 and 1972 greatly increased the knowledge of the Moon as well as that of our own Earth's age and origins. Part of the scientific research used geophysical techniques to help define the structure of the Moon, both deep and also regarding the near surface. One such experimentation that was carried out, on both Apollo 14 and Apollo 16, as part of the Apollo Lunar Seismic Experiment Package (ALSEP), was the Active Seismic Experiment (ASE). The ASE comprised of three geophones, planted at approximately 45m apart along a longitudinal line, that recorded signals from small explosive charges deployed at specific distances in between the geophones, The analysis resulted in a set of traveltimes, from source to receiver, that were later interpreted using the intercept time method. Since then the data set results were accepted. The development of traveltime tomographic techniques in the early 1990's allows for models to have a more realistic appearance with both lateral variations of seismic velocity as well as increasing velocities with a certain gradient in depth. This is opposed to the sharp sudden increases of compressional wave velocity typical of the intercept time method's assumption. Herein we will present a discussion as well as the results of the reinterpretation of the Apollo 14 and 16 ASE refraction traveltimes using traveltime tomography techniques.

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DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2019/1.1/s05.116

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