Analysis of recent African tectonic plate system kinematics based on GNSS data

Abstract

The African tectonic plate system consists of the Africa Plate, Somali Plate, Arabia Plate, and a few microplates. These plates have complex kinematics and involve both convergent and divergent motion, resulting in various fault systems and geological features, therefore require constant analysis. This paper presents an analysis of the recent kinematics of the African tectonic plate system based on the coordinates and time series of daily solutions of continuous GNSS stations obtained from the Nevada State Geological Survey, which are freely available. A total of 217 continuous GNSS stations were selected for the study, including 126 for the Africa Plate, 49 for the Somali Plate, and 36 for the Arabia Plate. This study involved three stages: horizontal velocity determination, strain rates determination, and rotation pole determination. The horizontal velocities of continuous GNSS stations in the ITRF2014/IGS14 reference frame on the African tectonic plate system during 1996-2022 were obtained. Deformation processes were analysed, particularly at plate boundaries such as the East African Rift System. The horizontal velocities of GNSS stations were used to determine the rotation poles of the African tectonic plate system main plates. The velocities, deformations, and rotation poles of the plates were found to be consistent with previous studies. The results confirmed the presence of different geodynamic processes within the African tectonic plate system.

Tectonic plates moment of inertia and angular momentum determination: the case of the Antarctic plate

“…The processes of tectonic plate movement are of consi derable scientific interest, important for understanding geological processes, earthquakes, mountain ranges, and other geological phenomena. In recent years, long-term time series of daily solutions of continuous GNSS (Glo bal Navigation Satellite System) stations have been actively used to study them (Atanasova-Zlatareva, 2014;Saria et al, 2014;Vassileva & Atanasova, 2014;Vassileva & Atanasova, 2016;Zhou et al, 2016;Li et al, 2019;Di mitrov & Nakov, 2022;Savchyn, 2023). The interest in such data is driven by the high quality of geodynamic processes' determination due to the fairly dense networks of continuous Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) stations on all continents (Blewitt et al, 2018) and the everincreasing, and already high, accuracy of satellite measurements.…”

“…Last but not least, most of the data are freely available. There are enough examples of GNSS measurements used to study geodynamic processes on major, minor, and microplates, for example, for the Eurasian Plate in Zhou et al (2016), Li et al (2019), Dimitrov and Nakov (2022), for the African Plate in Saria et al (2014), Savchyn (2023), for the North American Plate in Calais et al (2006), for the South American Plate in Xiang et al (2022) and of course, this list of publications can be extended.…”