Exploring Lithospheric Deformation of Western US with Large GPS Networks

The advent of large dense GPS networks such as PBO poses a logistical obstacle to scientific studies: how can the scientist best explore the deformation being measured by these networks while not spending all their time analyzing massive quantities of data? In response to this challenge, we have developed an operational system for generating data products useful for the study of lithospheric deformation in the Western U.S. from PBO and other continuous GPS stations in this region. The primary objective of this project, funded through NASA’s Making Earth System data records for Use in Research Environments (MEaSUREs) program, is to generate long-term consistent surface deformation Earth Science Data Records (ESDRs) by infusing science product generation, visualization, and manipulation tools and information technology, prototyped in the past 5 years under a variety of NASA Earth Science programs, into an end-to-end operational Science Data System. The products include geodetic daily position time series, crustal motion velocities, and strain and strain rate maps. The data products are based on weekly analysis of over 1300 GPS stations in Western North America, using both GIPSY (JPL) and GAMIT (SOPAC). We will discuss our process for analysis, combination, time series analysis, filtering and quality control. The resulting data products are at the level just below interpretation and will make scientific discoveries from PBO and other networks more accessible to the broad community of geophysics researchers and students by generating high level deformation products from the raw geodetic data and providing the through a science data portal with integrated product exploration and modeling tools. The science data portal, GPS Explorer (http://geoapp03.ucsd.edu/gridsphere/gridsphere), allows scientific users to explore and manipulate these products and data sets in a workbench-like environment. Custom data product tools allow users to do their own modeling and filtering of time series from PBO sites and other stations greater western North America region. We will demonstrate GPS Explorer’s interactive visualization and custom analysis tools.