The strain accumulation studies between India and Antarctica in the Southern Indian Peninsula with GPS/GNSS-Geodesy by geodetically tying the two continents

Two global networks (IND and ANT) have been chosen that geodetically connect the two continents to holistically understand the geodynamical and crustal deformation processes in the south of Indian peninsula between India and Antarctica,. Since the baseline length between HYDE, India and MAIT, Antarctica is more than 10,000 km, it is mandatory to form these two different networks to improve the accuracy of the baseline measurements by GPS and so the IGS Station at Diego Garcia (DGAR) is chosen as the common station between the two networks. 13 years of data from 1997 to 2010 were used. By these global networks' analyses, the stations HYDE and MAIT are geodetically tied through DGAR. Very long baselines have been estimated from HYDE and also from Kerguelen (KERG) to other chosen IGS stations in and around India and Antarctica. Our analysis and results using ANT network show an increase in the baseline lengths between Kerguelen in Antarctic plate and other stations such as SEY1, DGAR and COCO and shortening of baseline lengths between HYDE in Indian plate and all these above stations using IND network. The analysis using ANT network also shows lengthening of baselines from Kerguelen to the sites Yaragadee (YAR1) and Tidbinbilla (TID2) in Australian plate; and Seychelles (SEY1) in Male plate, COCO in the diffuse plate boundary between India and Australia and DGAR in Capricorn plate at the rates of 5.3cm/yr, 3.8cm/yr, 5.6mm/yr, 3.03 cm/yr and 5.5 cm/yr respectively. The high rate of movement of COCO Island in comparison to Seychelles could be the result of excessive strain accumulation due to the Indo-Australia diffuse plate boundary forces acting upon this region. The estimated elastic strain accumulation shows an increasing trend of 1.27x 10-8 yr-1 in the south of Indian peninsula. Our results show the precision of approximately 3-4mm (North), 5-6 mm (East), and 10-12mm (vertical) for the estimation of site coordinates. These results provide new information on the direction and rate of Indian plate motion, and intraplate seismicity of the Indian Ocean on the whole.<br />
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