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A national-scale crustal velocity model has been developed for Canada as part of the current realisation of NAD83(CSRS), delivered as a set of 3 national grids, for each of the North, East and Up (N, E and U) components. It is used to propagate coordinates to different reference epochs, and to support scientific studies such as natural hazards, climate change, and groundwater change. The previous velocity model was based on continuous and campaign GPS data between 1994 and 2011.3. The new model includes new stations in key areas, six more years of data (to the end of 2017), and newly reprocessed historical data using the latest software and GPS products. We include data from continuous GPS sites in Canada, the northern portions of the US, all of Greenland, and a set of globally distributed sites used to define the reference frame; and from repeated high accuracy campaign surveys in Canada. A new type of model is introduced for the vertical grid. It incorporates GPS observations with the crustal uplift predictions of Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) and elastic rebound models, which are especially important in areas with sparse coverage. Gridded uncertainty estimates are provided for each component of NAD83v70VG.

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<p>A suite of forward GIA model predictions, spanning a wide range of layered mantle viscosity and lithospheric thickness values, is compared to observed horizontal crustal motions in North America to discern optimal model parameters in order to minimize a root-mean-square (RMS) measure of the velocity residuals. To obtain the Earth model response, a combination of the full normal mode analysis and the collocation method is implemented. It provides a means to determine the surface loading response automatically and robustly to 1-dimensional (radially varying) Earth models, while retaining as much of the physics of the normal mode method as numerically feasible, given documented issues with singularities along the negative inverse-time axis in the Laplace transform domain. This method enables the exploration across a wide parameter range (for the lower mantle, transition zone, asthenosphere, and thickness of the elastic lithosphere) to find optimal combinations to explain horizontal crustal motion in North America. The analysis utilizes crustal motion rates from approximately 300 GNSS sites in central North America (Canada and United States) provided by the Nevada Geodetic Laboratory.  Preliminary results indicate that horizontal crustal motion predictions generated with a thin lithosphere, 40 – 60 km, produce horizontal motions that are strongly discrepant with the observations and have velocity residuals larger than the null model (modelled horizontal motion set to zero). As the lithospheric thickness increases, from 80 km to 240 km, the horizontal motion residuals gradually decrease with no minimum apparent for the thicknesses thus far considered. The residual velocities for the best-fitting models appear to carry a remaining signal, confirming previous inferences of limitations to spherically symmetric Earth models in modeling horizontal crustal motions in North America.</p>