How can speed and direction of a tectonic plate be determined by GPS data? ?
March 9th, 2010 | by admin |i am trying to study for midterms, and that question is on my study guide. if anyone knows the answer, that would be awesome! thanks!
GPS data’s gives you the location of any particular buildings or locations. After few years the same should have moved to a distance.The time and distance of movement will help to decide the rate of movement and the distance it moved.
5 Responses to “How can speed and direction of a tectonic plate be determined by GPS data? ?”
By James K on Mar 9, 2010 | Reply
if both side of the plates have serveyed points 3 of them each the gps can trianglate movement from all 6 fix points that how i would do it
References :
did field mapping in college in he geology class what i remember
By Nadia L on Mar 9, 2010 | Reply
omg i have the same questiion my study guideis honors science do u have mr winn?
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By A.Ganapathy India on Mar 9, 2010 | Reply
GPS data’s gives you the location of any particular buildings or locations. After few years the same should have moved to a distance.The time and distance of movement will help to decide the rate of movement and the distance it moved.
References :
My knowledge in earth science.
By jambul on Mar 9, 2010 | Reply
try read this ebook:
http://hugebook.net/?p=244
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By purple bandit on Mar 9, 2010 | Reply
OMG, you just described my master’s thesis.
The way GPS is used for tectonic studies is very different than how most people use GPS. Most people use GPS to determine a position and the GPS reports coordinates of that position (lat, long, alt).
Doing tectonic studies with GPS is quite different. Geophysicists don’t care about the position of any one point. Instead they measure the baseline between two points (dx, dy, dz). They then measure the same baseline again some time later (on the order of years) to see how the baseline has changed. They’ll do this for a number of baselines that not only span the plate boundary but also on each side of the plate. Here is a gross example (I’m going to try to do this with ASCII graphics)…
Imagine a plate bounday with points A and B on each side and a baseline between them:
A —– B
Assuming some plate movment has occured, several years later you measure the same baseline (ignore the periods):
A
.. \
….\
…..\
……B
As you can see the baseline orientation changes. Now do this for a network of baselines. Quantifiying these baseline change is what allows one to determine speed and direction of the plate movment.
In the example above, a plate movement where the left side of the plate boundary is moving upwards relative to the right side of the boundary can be quantified. Again, this is a very gross and exaggerated example but I hope you get the idea.
Generally, the actual points that are used for the endpoints of each baseline will be some kind of stable monument like a survey monument (but they don’t need to be surveyed)
So why baselines? The primary reason is precision/accuracy. Though GPS is very precise (some will argue accurate), it can only get your position to several meters, at best. The plate tectonic movement is well within this noise (so you won’t be able to trace any tectonic movement by monitoring positions). However, baseline measurements are extremely precise, on the order of millimeters or centimeters (depending on the length of the baseline). This is quite useful in detecting plate tectonic movement. However, this comes at a price. You cannot use consumer GPS products (TomTom, Garmin, etc) to do this kind of work. You need survey grade receivers. They cost tens of thousands of dollars and you’ll need several receivers to do this kind of work efficiently.
References :
Master Degree in Geophysics (Columbia University) specializing in plate tectonics. I also develop GPS receivers for a living.