Postseismic Transient After the 2002 Denali Fault Earthquake From VLBI Measurements at Fairbanks

The VLBI antenna at Fairbanks observes in networks routinely twice a week and on additional days with other networks on a more uneven basis. The Fairbanks antenna position is about 150 km north of the Denali fault and from the earthquake epicenter. Time series of the VLBI horizontal position at Fairbanks show that over the first 6 months after the earthquake, the rate of change of position primarily in the northerly direction was about 30-40 mm/yr less than the long-term rate prior to the earthquake. We examine the transient behavior during the year following the earthquake to determine how the rate of change of postseismic deformation has decreased. We compare the VLBI time series with the GPS time series, which also shows a similar transient after the earthquake. We also compare the rate of transient decay from Fairbanks with decay from other examples of transient behavior following earthquakes that have been monitored by continuous GPS measurements.