Earth tide

Earth tide (also known as solid Earth tide, crustal tide, body tide, bodily tide or land tide) is the displacement of the solid earth's surface caused by the gravity of the Moon and Sun. Its main component has meter-level amplitude at periods of about 12 hours and longer. The largest body tide constituents are semi-diurnal, but there are also significant diurnal, semi-annual, and fortnightly contributions. Though the gravitational force causing earth tides and ocean tides is the same, the responses are quite different. The larger of the periodic gravitational forces is from the Moon but that of the Sun is also important. The images here show lunar tidal force when the Moon appears directly over 30° N (or 30° S). This pattern remains fixed with the red area directed toward (or directly away from) the Moon. Red indicates upward pull, blue downward. If, for example the Moon is directly over 90° W (or 90° E), the red areas are centred on the western northern hemisphere, on upper right. Red up, blue down. If for example the Moon is directly over 90° W (90° E), the centre of the red area is 30° N, 90° W and 30° S, 90° E, and the centre of the bluish band follows the great circle equidistant from those points. At 30° latitude a strong peak occurs once per lunar day, giving a significant diurnal force at that latitude. Along the equator two equally sized peaks (and depressions) impart semi-diurnal force. The Earth tide encompasses the entire body of the Earth and is unhindered by the thin crust and land masses of the surface, on scales that make the rigidity of rock irrelevant. Ocean tides are a consequence of tangent forces (see: equilibrium tide) and the resonance of the same driving forces with water movement periods in ocean basins accumulated over many days, so that their amplitude and timing are quite different and vary over short distances of just a few hundred kilometres. The oscillation periods of the Earth as a whole are not near the astronomical periods, so its flexing is due to the forces of the moment.