ITRF2008 plate motion model

Abstract

[1] The ITRF2008 velocity field is demonstrated to be of higher quality and more precise than past ITRF solutions. We estimated an absolute tectonic plate motion model made up of 14 major plates, using velocities of 206 sites of high geodetic quality (far from plate boundaries, deformation zones and Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) regions), derived from and consistent with ITRF2008. The precision of the estimated model is evaluated to be at the level of 0.3 mm/a WRMS. No GIA corrections were applied to site velocities prior to estimating plate rotation poles, as our selected sites are outside the Fennoscandia regions where the GIA models we tested are performing reasonably well, and far from GIA areas where the models would degrade the fit (Antarctica and North America). Our selected velocity field has small origin rate bias components following the three axis (X, Y, Z), respectively 0.41 AE 0.54, 0.22 AE 0.64 and 0.41 AE 0.60 (95 per cent confidence limits). Comparing our model to NNR-NUVEL-1A and the newly available NNR-MORVEL56, we found better agreement with NNR-MORVEL56 than with NNR-NUVEL-1A for all plates, except for Australia where we observe an average residual rotation rate of 4 mm/a. Using our selection of sites, we found large global X-rotation rates between the two models (0.016 /Ma) and between our model and NNR-MORVEL56 of 0.023 /Ma, equivalent to 2.5 mm/a at the Earth surface.

Current deformation in Central Afar and triple junction kinematics deduced from GPS and InSAR measurements

“…We only consider the velocities considered previously as the « interdyking » velocities, in order not to introduce large horizontal vectors which would lead to an unstable inversion. The motion of the Arabian plate is imposed using Altamini et al (2008), and the motion (Jacques et al 1999). of the Somalia and Nubia using Déprez et al (2013Déprez et al ( , 2015 see Table 1). …”

Crustal Motion Models Developed for Version 3.2 of the Horizontal Time-Dependent Positioning Utility

“…Here their estimated rotation rates (0.035, -0.662, -0.100) milli-arc-seconds/yr and translation rates (0.41, 0.22, 0.41) mm/yr are used to convert modeled ITRF2008 velocities for Alaska and Eastern CONUS into velocities relative to a fixed North-America-plate reference frame. Note that the model of Altamimi et al [3] for the motion of stable North America differs from the one used in developing this study's Alaskan crustal motion models, because the model of Altamimi et al was not available when the Alaskan GPS data were reprocessed for this study. Figure 1 and Figure 10 present the resulting velocity fields for Alaska and Eastern CONUS, respectively, relative to stable North America.…”

“…Altamimi et al [3] selected 44 continuous GPS stations which, in their estimation, reside within the stable part of the North America plate. These authors then employed the IERS-derived ITRF2008 horizontal velocities of these 44 stations to estimate the motion of stable North America relative to ITRF2008.…”

“…Gridded regions all precede the tectonic plates. The (contained in [11]), its value was added to the corresponding ITRF2008 rate of the Pacific plate (as given in [3])…”

Vertical and horizontal surface displacements near Jakobshavn Isbræ driven by melt‐induced and dynamic ice loss

“…The amplitudes and phases of the main ocean tidal loading terms are calculated using the Automatic Loading Provider (http://www.oso.chalmers.se/~loading, Scherneck and Bos [2002]) applied to the FES2004 ocean tide model including correction for center of mass motion of the Earth due to the ocean tides. The site coordinates are computed in the ITRF2008 frame [Altamimi et al, 2012]. The secular trends and their uncertainties are estimated as described in Khan et al [2010].Annual displacement cycles are modeled using a four term Fourier series .…”