SNARF 2.0: A Regional Reference Frame for North America
Abstract
Regional reference frames fixed to the stable part of a tectonic plate are often required for national spatial reference systems and to facilitate geophysical interpretation and inter-comparison of geodetic solutions of crustal motions. In 2003, the Stable North American Reference Frame (SNARF) Working Group was established under the auspices of UNAVCO and IAG Regional Sub-Commission 1.3c to address the needs of the EarthScope project. The goal was to define a regional reference frame stable at the sub-mm/yr level. The SNARF Working Group identified and dealt with several issues in order to define and generate such a regional frame, including (1) the selection of "frame sites" based on geologic and engineering criteria for stability, (2) the selection of a subset of "datum sites" which represent the stable part of the plate and were used to define the no-net rotation condition, (3) the modeling of both the vertical and horizontal effects of glacial isostatic adjustment using a relatively dense GPS velocity field, and (4) the generation and distribution of products for general use, in particular for Earthscope investigators. Version 1.0 of the SNARF has been released and is available through the UNAVCO web site. In this paper, we discuss the development of SNARF Version 2.0, which will incorporate more input analyses than SNARF Version 1.0 and will be related to the North American plate through a more complete Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) model. SNARF Version 1.0 is used in the reference frame definition for the plate boundary observatory (PBO) and we will compare the SNARF realizations with the PBO determined station velocities in North America.
- Publication:
-
AGU Spring Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- May 2008
- Bibcode:
- 2008AGUSM.G31B..01H
- Keywords:
-
- 1209 Tectonic deformation (6924);
- 1211 Non-tectonic deformation;
- 1229 Reference systems;
- 1236 Rheology of the lithosphere and mantle (7218;
- 8160);
- 1240 Satellite geodesy: results (6929;
- 7215;
- 7230;
- 7240)