Estimating regional deformation from a combination of space and terrestrial geodetic data

We discuss an approach for efficiently combining different types of geodetic data to estimate time-dependent motions of stations in a region of active deformation. The primary observations are analyzed separately to produce loosely constrained estimates of station positions and coordinate system parameters which are then combined with appropriate constraints to estimate velocities and coseismic displacements. We define noninteger degrees of freedom to handle the case of finite constraints and stochastic perturbation of parameters and develop statistical tests for determining compatibility between different data sets. With these developments, we show an example of combining space and terrestrial geodetic data to obtain the deformation field in southern California.

Authors and Affiliations

1.  Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 4800 Oak Grove Dr., Pasadena, CA 91109, USA, , , , , , US

   D. Dong

2.  Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA, , , , , , US

   T. A. Herring & R. W. King

Received: 23 January 1997 / Accepted: 30 September 1997

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