Comparison of Deep Drill Braced Monument (DDBM) and Borehole Strainmeter (BSM) Wellhead GPS antenna mounts: a Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) case study from Dinsmore, CA

With the 2009 installation of GPS station P793 in Dinsmore, CA, the Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) created a unique opportunity to directly compare a traditional deep drill braced GPS monument (DDBM) with a borehole strainmeter (BSM) wellhead GPS monument. PBO installed a GPS antenna to the wellhead of BSM B935 to perform a direct comparison to DDBM P327 in an attempt to determine stability and long-term behavior of both. The two adjacent stations share power and communications and are roughly 20 meters apart. The steel BSM casing is cemented ~520ft in meta-sandstone & shale, while the DDBM is anchored ~30ft deep in alluvial river gravels. Both stations are located inside a rural auto wrecking yard, which has potential sources of fixed noise in the form of multipath reflections off large metal objects. Preliminary analysis indicates consistent measurements in the North-South component, and a ~3.3 mm difference in the East-West component that has been detected between the two stations over a 450-day period (~2.7 mm/yr). The analysis utilizes standard PBO data products and differences time series data from each station in the SNARF 1.0 and IGS 2005 reference frames. We estimate the time dependent seasonal variations observed at each station and compare with available temperature and precipitation data to attempt to identify the cause of differential movement between the monuments.