TY - JOUR
T1 - Effect of post-seismic deformation on earth orientation parameter estimates from VLBI observations
T2 - A case study at Gilcreek, Alaska
AU - Titov, Oleg
AU - Tregoning, Paul
PY - 2005/7
Y1 - 2005/7
N2 - Earth orientation parameters (EOPs) provide a link between the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF) and the International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF). Natural geodynamic processes, such as earthquakes, can cause the motion of stations to become discontinuous and/or non-linear, thereby corrupting the EOP estimates if the sites are assumed to move linearly. The VLBI antenna at the Gilcreek Geophysical Observatory has undergone non-linear, post-seismic motion as a result of the Mw = 7.9 Denali earthquake in November 2002, yet some VLBI analysts have adopted co-seismic offsets and a linear velocity model to represent the motion of the site after the earthquake. Ignoring the effects of the Denali earthquake leads to error on the order of 300-600 μas for the EOP, while modelling the post-seismic motion of Gilcreek with a linear velocity generates errors of 20-50 μas. Only by modelling the site motion with a non-linear function is the same level of accuracy of EOP estimates maintained. The effect of post-seismic motion on EOP estimates derived from the International VLBI Service IVS-R1 and IVS-R4 networks are not the same, although changes in network geometries and equipment improvements have probably affected the estimates more significantly than the earthquake-induced deformation at Gilcreek.
AB - Earth orientation parameters (EOPs) provide a link between the International Celestial Reference Frame (ICRF) and the International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF). Natural geodynamic processes, such as earthquakes, can cause the motion of stations to become discontinuous and/or non-linear, thereby corrupting the EOP estimates if the sites are assumed to move linearly. The VLBI antenna at the Gilcreek Geophysical Observatory has undergone non-linear, post-seismic motion as a result of the Mw = 7.9 Denali earthquake in November 2002, yet some VLBI analysts have adopted co-seismic offsets and a linear velocity model to represent the motion of the site after the earthquake. Ignoring the effects of the Denali earthquake leads to error on the order of 300-600 μas for the EOP, while modelling the post-seismic motion of Gilcreek with a linear velocity generates errors of 20-50 μas. Only by modelling the site motion with a non-linear function is the same level of accuracy of EOP estimates maintained. The effect of post-seismic motion on EOP estimates derived from the International VLBI Service IVS-R1 and IVS-R4 networks are not the same, although changes in network geometries and equipment improvements have probably affected the estimates more significantly than the earthquake-induced deformation at Gilcreek.
KW - Denali earthquake
KW - Earth orientation parameters (EOP) estimation
KW - Postseismic deformation
KW - Terrestrial reference frame
KW - Very long baseline interferometry (VLBI)
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=23744514524&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s00190-005-0459-9
DO - 10.1007/s00190-005-0459-9
M3 - Article
SN - 0949-7714
VL - 79
SP - 196
EP - 202
JO - Journal of Geodesy
JF - Journal of Geodesy
IS - 4-5
ER -