The cavity perturbation technique has been used to measure the dielectric constant of vegetation, such as soyabean, grass, corn and green spruce at 9.5 GHz. The dielectric properties of these vegetations are highly dependent upon the moisture content. For freshly plucked specimen the dielectric constant was found to be maximum which decreased gradually as the specimen dried up. The role of these basic physical parameters in microwave scatterometer experiment has been discussed. Some parameters of remote sensing application have been estimated from these measurements and their practical role has been discussed

Mead axisymmetric distortions in the geomagnetic field and uniform electrostatic field parallel to geomagnetic field have been assumed to derive an expression for the inhomogeneity parameter, α_d. Consequent change in the pitch angle diffusion of charged particles has been obtained. Using these parameters, the variations in the precipitating electron influx with varying stand-off distances and parallel electrostatic fields have been computed.

The plasma waves in the Venus ionosphere measured by OEFD aboard PVO are analysed. It is shown that these waves are generated by lightning like cloud-to-cloud discharges anywhere in the Venus ionosphere-surface waveguide. The theoretical minimum attenuation for waveguide mode propagation at 5.4 kHz is consistent with the maximum occurrence rate at this frequency. The lightning-generated and globally-propagating signals when encountered with plasma holes or ion-trough structures escape out partially and are detected by the OEFD aboard PVO. The 100 Hz signals can propagate upwards in whistler mode. Even the localized electrostatic mode waves would be converted into electromagnetic waves in the plasma holes and ion-trough regions.

A rheological model of the Indian shield has been constructed using the thermal structure derived from available surface heat flow and heat generation data and the flow properties of characteristic minerals and rocks like quartz, diabase and olivine which respectively represent the upper crust, lower crust and upper mantle. Lateral variations in the thicknesses of the brittle and ductile crust and of the brittle upper mantle have thus been obtained for different tectonic environments. Implications of these results to interpretation of the seismic structure of the Indian shield have been pointed out.

An algorithm for the solution of a nonlinear problem of phase boundary movement and evolution of temperature distribution due to the perturbation in the basal heat flux has been discussed. The reduction of the problem to a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations with the help of a Fourier series method leads to a stiff system. This stiffness is taken care of by the use of a modified Euler’s method. Various cases of basal heat flow variation have been considered to show the performance and stability of the technique for such a nonlinear system. The first case of step-wise function is taken to analyse the performance of the technique, and the study has been extended to other general cases of linear increase, periodic variation, and box and triangular function type variations in the heat flux. In the step-wise case the phase boundary attains a constant position rapidly if the supplied heat flux is sufficiently large. The effect of periodicity in the heat flow is clearly depicted in the phase boundary movement, where the phase boundary oscillates about the mean position at large times. The absence of any constant level in the case of linear increase in heat flux is due to a very large value of heat flux. In the cases of box car and triangular heat flux the boundary starts moving downward after the cessation of excess heat flux but does not immediately return to its original preperturbation state, instead approaches it at large times. This technique may be applied to more general cases of heat flow variation.

Dynamic recrystallization and reduction in grain-size at large strains, e.g. in shear zones, leads to rheological weakening of the lithosphere and facilitates intense ductile deformation. In the present work, we include this effect into the rheological models of the Indian continental lithosphere to analyse its role in modifying the rheological structure and strength of the Indian lithosphere. The results computed by using quartz and felspar rheologies for the upper and lower crust, respectively, and grain-size dependent olivine rheology for the upper mantle, indicate an increase in the ductility of the mantle lithosphere.

Gravity and bathymetry data have been extensively used to infer the thermo-mechanical evolution of different segments of the oceanic lithosphere. It is now understood that magmatic fluid processes involved in the accretion of oceanic crust are spatially complex and episodic. The nature of these processes which are in general nonlinear, can be described using fractal analysis of marine geophysical data. Fractal analysis has been carried out for gravity and bathymetry profiles over the aseismic Chagos-Laccadive Ridge and the spreading Carlsberg Ridge. The Iterated Function Systems (IFS) have been used to generate synthetic profiles of known dimension (D) and these are compared with the observed profiles. The D for the data sets are in the range of 1–1.5. The D for gravity profiles is less than those of bathymetry and the D for gravity and bathymetry over spreading ridge is higher than the aseismic ridge. The low fractal dimension indicates that the processes generating them are of low dimensional dynamical systems.

Near-subsurface temperatures have signatures of climate change. Thermal models of subsurface have been constructed by prescribing time dependent Dirichlet type boundary condition wherein the temperature at the soil surface is prescribed and depth distribution of temperature is obtained. In this formulation it is not possible to include the relationship between air temperatures and the temperature of soil surface. However, if one uses a Robin type boundary condition, a transfer coefficient relates the air and soil surface temperatures which helps to determine both the temperature at the surface and at depth given near surface air temperatures. This coefficient is a function of meteorological conditions and is readily available. We have developed such a thermal model of near subsurface region which includes both heat conduction and advection due to groundwater flows and have presented numerical results for changes in the temperature–depth profiles for different values of transfer coefficient and groundwater flux. There are significant changes in temperature and depth profiles due to changes in the transfer coefficient and groundwater flux. The analytical model will find applications in the interpretation of the borehole geothermal data to extract both climate and groundwater flow signals.