Dr. ved Lekic is a Professor at University of Maryland in the Department of Geological, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences. Dr. Lekic is a seismologist who seeks to understand the state, dynamics, and dominant processes of the solid Earth, as well as those of other planets and satellites. Join us to hear about his research using earthquake and marsquake waveforms to understand planetary interiors.

Dr. Ved Lekic
University of Maryland
Department of Geological, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences

Decoding Earthquake and Marsquake Waveforms to Reveal Planetary Interiors

Earthquakes and meteorite impacts produce elastic waves that travel through planetary interiors along a variety of trajectories, interacting with internal structures along the way. When recorded by seismometers, these seismic waveforms hold a treasure trove of information about the conditions of the inaccessible interiors of planets. Quantitative analysis of this information leverages computational modeling to identify signals of particular interest and to interpret them in the context of wavefield propagation. In this talk, I illustrate how we analyze seismic recordings of earthquakes and marsquakes collected by extensive seismic networks on our planet and the single high-fidelity instrument deployed by NASA’s InSight mission to Mars. I then discuss how the insights from this analysis have transformed our understanding of the core-mantle boundary regions of both planets.