Stability of Northern Eurasia Based on Satellite Geodesy Data

Abstract

The geodynamics of Northern Eurasia has been analyzed based on repeated satellite positioning with GNSS stations throughout the Russian Federation territory from 2015 to the present. The study utilized two sources of data: observations from the stations of the Russian Fundamental Astro-Geodetic Network (FAGN) and stations of the International GNSS Service (IGS) with permanent satellite tracking. This data set allowed to estimate correctness of the block kinematics of the Eurasian plate in three tectonic plate motion models: NUVEL-1A, NNR-MORVEL-56, and ITRF2014. The analysis of the misfits between the observed and model velocities has shown that these misfits have a systematic component in the vicinity of the East European Platform which differs for each of three models. In addition to analyzing the block kinematics of the Eurasian plate, we also evaluated its internal stability. To do this, we calculated the areal deformations of Northern Eurasia using the finite element method. For this purpose, we added the observations processing results from the global data set of the Nevada Geodetic Laboratory to the processing results from two original data sets. Besides interplate boundary deformations which are consistent with existing ideas of the geodynamics of Northern Eurasia, the strain field analysis also revealed intraplate deformations distributed consistently with the configuration of the Northern Eurasia cratons.