An analysis of seismic waves from regional microearthquake networks shows that the seismic leading edge of the Philippine Sea plate may have reached the uppermost mantle beneath the southern to central part of the western Chugoku region, Japan. The epicenters are located close to the volcanic front in the region. The most possible cause of the very low seismicity may be the initiation of melting of the Philippine Sea plate.

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Lessons learned form the disastrous earthquake (MW = 5.9) that hit the metropolitan area of Athens, Greece, on 7 September 1999, are examined particularly as for the seismic potential considered before the earthquake occurrence. A general belief was created in the past decades that the seismic potential in Athens was very low. Fault plane solutions of the 1999 shock indicate that it was associated with a normal fault trending WNW-ESE and dipping to SW. Field geological observations conducted after the event in the Fili neotectonic fault, situated at 15-20 km to the north of Athens, imply that it has possibly been the seismogenic structure of the main rupture, and that it reactivated in very recent geological times. Archaeoseismological observations performed in the ancient Fili Fort, revealed repaired structural damage that was very likely caused by an earthquake occurring in palaeochristianic or Byzantine times. From a new catalogue of historical earthquakes it results that the main events of 1705, 1805 and 1889 could be tentatively located within a distance of -30 km from Athens although the little macroseismic information available makes their locations quite uncertain. During the instrumental period of observation, only few small shocks were recorded in the Athens region. It is obvious that should a research effort had been undertaken before the 1999 earthquake, certainly it would be concluded that at least one strong earthquake took place in historical times in the broad region affected in 1999, and that the Fili fault is active and is capable to produce strong shocks in the future. However, such a study was never conducted by the scientific community beforehand.

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Tectonics in the Himalayan foothills is a result of the compressional forces active since the collision between Indian and Eurasian plates and is best understood as a combination of thin skin tectonics and the basement level faulting. In order to delineate the depth extent of various thrusts and faults, wide band Magnetotelluric (MT) studies were conducted at 17 stations over the Una-Mandi profile located in the Lesser Himalayas. These studies indicate that the Palampur thrust may be a composite of two thrust zones which merge together on the south of the MT profile and extends to depths of about 8 km. The Lambagraon syncline flanked by the Sarkaghat anticline on the NE and the Bahl anticline to the SW, is about 10 km deep. The crust is underlain by a conductive layer with a resistivity of about 100Ω - m at depth of about 50 km below the Palampur thrust and Sarkaghat anticline. This layer is delineated at shallower depths of about 35 km below the Lambagraon syncline and also on the NE towards the main boundary thrust.

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The nighttime traveling ionospheric disturbances (TIDs) and the F-region 3-m scale field-aligned irregularities were simultaneously observed with the MU radar and GEONET, a GPS network, during the FRONT (F-region Radio and Optical measurement of the Nighttime TID) campaign periods in May 1998 and August 1999. The vertical profile of electron density detected by the incoherent scatter observation of the MU radar clarified that ionized atmosphere on the bottomside of the ionospheric F-region was deeply modulated by TIDs, which would cause the variations of the 630 nm band airglow luminosity. The coherent echoes from the 3-m scale fieldaligned irregularities were detected also on the bottomside of the F-region in the nights when TIDs were intense in amplitude and the ionosphere was uplifted. Two-dimensional structures of the field-aligned irregularities detected by the multi-beam observation of the MU radar revealed that the 3-m scale irregularities formed band-like structures and traveled to the southwest in several nights. Their wave vector and traveling velocity were coincident with those of the nighttime TIDs that were simultaneously detected by the TEC observation of GEONET. The intense Doppler velocities of the coherent echoes indicate that the polarization electric field is generated inside the TIDs. We consider that the horizontal gradient of the electric conductivity associated by TIDs and the vertical gradient of the conductivity on the bottomside of the F-region ionosphere generates the 3-m scale irregularities through the gradient-drift instability process. The anti-correlation of the occurrence rate of the F-region field-aligned irregularities to the solar activity would be caused by the anti-correlation of the amplitude of TIDs and of the vertical gradient of the Pedersen conductivity.

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Southwestward-propagating medium-scale traveling ionospheric disturbances (MSTIDs) observed over Shigaraki (34.85°N, 136.10°E) in Japan on the night of May 22, 1998 are analyzed in detail. The MSTIDs were detected with a 630.0 nm (OI) all-sky imager at Shigaraki and a large number of GPS (Global Positioning System) receivers distributed around Shigaraki. Each GPS receiver provided total electron content (TEC) between the GPS altitude (20, 200 km) and the ground. MSTID amplitudes varied in space and time, and showed decay and enhancement during the southwestward propagation, suggesting that amplitudes of atmospheric gravity waves and the interaction process between gravity waves and F region plasma were highly variable. It is found that spatial and temporal fluctuations of the 630 nm intensity are well correlated with those of GPS-TEC except for a certain period of time. The Scheffield University Plasmasphere Ionosphere Model (SUPIM) is used to obtain theoretical relationships between the 630 nm airglow intensity and GPS-TEC and between their fluctuation amplitudes. The results indicate that the fluctuation amplitudes observed in weak airglow regions are caused by an electron density fluctuation of about ±20% occurring around an altitude of 250 km, where the 630 nm emission rate reaches a maximum, below the F layer peak altitude. Highly enhanced 630 nm intensity and GPS-TEC within a bright airglow region are due to an electron density enhancement of about 150% occurring at altitudes below 300 km.

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This paper reports the first attempt to observe the equatorward limit of medium-scale traveling ionospheric disturbances (TIDs) in the middle latitudes. The TIDs usually propagate southwestward in the northern hemisphere. An all-sky cooled-CCD imager measured 630-nm airglow at a southern island of Japan, Okinawa (26.9°N, 128.3°E, geomagnetic latitude (MLAT) = 17.0°), during the FRONT-2 campaign of August 4-15, 1999. The TIDs were detected at the mainland of Japan (-21°-36° MLAT) by the total electron content (TEC) observations of more than 1000 GPS receivers. In the August 4 event, the TIDs moving southwestward was seen only in the northern sky of Okinawa as a depletion band in the 630-nm airglow images. In the August 6 event, the TIDs were not seen in the 630-nm images at Okinawa, although weak TID activity was observed by the GPS network at the mainland of Japan. The TEC data also showed weakening of the TID activity below 18° MLAT. Based on these observations, we suggest that there is a possible limit of medium-scale TID propagation around -18° MLAT.

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The dual frequency radio signals of the Global Positioning System (GPS) allow measurements of the total number of electrons, called total electron content (TEC), along a ray path from GPS satellite to receiver. We have developed a new technique to construct two-dimensional maps of absolute TEC over Japan by using GPS data from more than 1000 GPS receivers. A least squares fitting procedure is used to remove instrumental biases inherent in the GPS satellite and receiver. Two-dimensional maps of absolute vertical TEC are derived with time resolution of 30 seconds and spatial resolution of 0.15° × 0.15° in latitude and longitude. Our method is validated in two ways. First, TECs along ray paths from the GPS satellites are simulated using a model for electron contents based on the IRI-95 model. It is found that TEC from our method is underestimated by less than 3 TECU. Then, estimated vertical GPS TEC is compared with ionospheric TEC that is calculated from simultaneous electron density profile obtained with the MU radar. Diurnal and day-to-day variation of the GPS TEC follows the TEC behavior derived from MU radar observation but the GPS TEC is 2 TECU larger than the MU radar TEC on average. This difference can be attributed to the plasmaspheric electron content along the GPS ray path. This method is also applied to GPS data during a magnetic storm of September 25, 1998. An intense TEC enhancement, probably caused by a northward expansion of the equatorial anomaly, was observed in the southern part of Japan in the evening during the main phase of the storm.

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Vertical total electron content (GPS-TEC) data obtained from the dual-frequency GPS receiver network (GEONET) in Japan are compared with those calculated using the Sheffield University plasmasphere-ionosphere model (SUPIM). The model is also used to estimate the electron content in the plasmaspheric sections of GPS ray paths for the three seasons of high solar activity (F10.7 = 165) under magnetically quiet conditions. According to the estimates, the plasmaspheric sections of vertical GPS ray paths over Japan at altitudes above the O⁺ to H⁺ transition height and above the upper altitude (2500 km) of Faraday rotation contain up to 11 and 9 TEC units (1 TEC unit = 10¹⁶ electrons m^-2) of free electrons, respectively. The free electrons present above the Faraday rotation altitude can cause propagation errors of up to 4.9 ns in time delay and 1.6 m in range at the GPS L1 (1.57542 GHz) frequency. The plasmaspheric electron content, PEC, changes appreciably with season and latitude and very little with the time of the day. However, the percentage contribution of PEC to GPS-TEC changes most significantly with the time of the day; the contribution varies from a minimum of about 12% during daytime at equinox to a maximum of about 60% at night in winter.

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