We present and interpret Global Positioning System (GPS) measurements of crustal motions for the period 1988–1997 at 189 sites extending east‐west from the Caucasus mountains to the Adriatic Sea and north‐south from the southern edge of the Eurasian plate to the northern edge of the African plate. Sites on the northern Arabian platform move 18±2 mm/yr at N25°±5°W relative to Eurasia, less than the NUVEL‐1A circuit closure rate (25±1 mm/yr at N21°±7°W). Preliminary motion estimates (1994–1997) for stations located in Egypt on the northeastern part of Africa show northward motion at 5–6±2 mm/yr, also slower than NUVEL‐IA estimates (10±1 mm/yr at N2°±4°E). Eastern Turkey is characterized by distributed deformation, while central Turkey is characterized by coherent plate motion (internal deformation of <2 mm/yr) involving westward displacement and counterclockwise rotation of the Anatolian plate. The Anatolian plate is de‐coupled from Eurasia along the right‐lateral, strike‐slip North Anatolian fault (NAF). We derive a best fitting Euler vector for Anatolia‐Eurasia motion of 30.7°± 0.8°N, 32.6°± 0.4°E, 1.2°±0.1°/Myr. The Euler vector gives an upper bound for NAF slip rate of 24±1 mm/yr. We determine a preliminary GPS Arabia‐Anatolia Euler vector of 32.9°±1.2°N, 40.3°±1.1°E, 0.8°±0.2°/Myr and an upper bound on left‐lateral slip on the East Anatolian fault (EAF) of 9±1 mm/yr. The central and southern Aegean is characterized by coherent motion (internal deformation of <2 mm/yr) toward the SW at 30±1 mm/yr relative to Eurasia. Stations in the SE Aegean deviate significantly from the overall motion of the southern Aegean, showing increasing velocities toward the trench and reaching 10±1 mm/yr relative to the southern Aegean as a whole.

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One of the best‐known anecdotes in the history of science recounts how the observation of an apple falling from a tree led Isaac Newton to discover the law of gravitation. For good reason, Newton's discovery did not trigger the development of “free‐fall” gravity meters and grand expeditions to the far corners of the Earth to measure gravity. Directly measuring the acceleration of a body in free fall near the surface of the Earth may be conceptually simple, but it is technologically difficult. It wasn't until more than 2 centuries later that time and length measurement techniques reached levels that motivated researchers to build free‐fall absolute gravimeters. These efforts were limited to the construction of one‐of‐a‐kind “laboratory” instruments, minus one notable exception: the construction of six identical absolute gravimeters by the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA) [Niebauer, 1987a]. Geodetic organizations worldwide used the JILA instruments to measure gravity at more than one hundred stations achieving repeatability or precision of a few microgals (1 μGal equals l×10−8ms−2).

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