GPS Geodesy in the California Borderlands

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As part of a number of efforts to elucidate how deformation is distributed across the North-American/Pacific plate boundary in California, the PI will continue GPS surveys in the Continental Borderland region, offshore of southern California. Such surveys have been conducted since 1986 by a consortium of four universities, including UCSD. A variety of evidence suggests that there is currently deformation in this region, with perhaps 20% of the total plate-boundary motion occurring there. The surveys so far made have given a number of tentative results for this region, but have raised new questions as well. The span of these surveys (5 years) has not been sufficient to unequivocally determine the deformation patterns. This project will double the time span of observations; given the improvements in the satellite constellation and tracking networks that have taken place in the last few years, this should do better than halve the errors. Since a major reason for making these measurements at all is to understand completely the budget of plate motion across this boundary, the needs to make the errors smaller than the remaining unknown amounts of motion. This not yet true, but should be when these measurements are complete.