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Near-field surface displacement and permanent deformation induced by the Alaska Mw 7.5 earthquake determined by high-rate real-time ambiguity-fixed PPP solutions

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  • Geophysics
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Chinese Science Bulletin

Abstract

High-rate GPS data from the United States continuously operating reference stations in the Alaska region are processed using the recently developed precise point positioning (PPP) technique. The traditional PPP technique does not fix ambiguities into their integers because these ambiguities do not have an integer nature when data from a single receiver, as well as precise orbit and clock corrections, are used. Additional corrections, i.e., uncalibrated phase delay (UPD), are needed to fix integer ambiguities and consequently improve positioning accuracy. This study proposes a methodology to compute for wide-lane and L2 (the second L-band frequency) UPDs using the geometry-based model and subsequently applies these parameters to the computation for ambiguity-fixed solutions. The instantaneous displacements of near-field sites, as well as the permanent deformations after the earthquake, are therefore obtained for the January 5, 2013, Alaska earthquake. The real-time performance of PPP solutions are assessed by considering realistic data latency and data interval of corrections. Ambiguity-fixed solutions are compared with ambiguity-float ones. The comparison shows that the positioning accuracy can be improved significantly when the ambiguities are fixed correctly. The solutions using the real-time corrections are also compared with those using post-processing corrections, i.e., Center for Orbit Determination in Europe final orbit and clock. Although the accuracy is somehow degraded because of the data latency and data interval, the real-time results are satisfactory for use in monitoring the small-scale deformation (1–2 cm) caused by the Alaska earthquake. In addition, the kinematic ambiguity-fixed PPP solutions for 7 days around the earthquake are calculated to obtain permanent pre- and post-earthquake deformations. The deformations computed from real-time and post-processing corrections do not appear to be significantly different.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41274036, 41231174), the Chinese Scholarship Council Program (201208420050), and the “111 Project” of China (B07037). The first author thanks Prof. Jeff Freymueller of the University of Alaska Fairbanks for his supervision and personal communication, as well as for the GPS measurements of the Alaska region and the basic GMT scripts for plotting Figs. 1 and 6.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Information Engineering, Department of Surveying Engineering, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Gang Chen

  2. GNSS Research Center, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China

    Qile Zhao

  3. Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK, 99775-7320, USA

    Gang Chen

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  1. Gang Chen
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  2. Qile Zhao
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Correspondence to Qile Zhao.

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Chen, G., Zhao, Q. Near-field surface displacement and permanent deformation induced by the Alaska Mw 7.5 earthquake determined by high-rate real-time ambiguity-fixed PPP solutions. Chin. Sci. Bull. 59, 4781–4789 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-014-0609-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-014-0609-7

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