Determination of horizontal and vertical movements of the Adriatic microplate on the basis of GPS measurements

Abstract

The paper describes the determination of horizontal and vertical movements of the Adriatic microplate on the basis of GPS measurements carried out in the period between 1994 and 2005 within the frame of the 21 measuring campaigns organized at the research territory. The role of geodetic measurement methods particularly GPS method is essential in applications that requires high accuracy and precision as in the velocity field estimation of tectonic plates. The processing of GPS data as well as computation of the coordinates of points and their velocities was performed by Bernese GPS Software Ver. 5.0 based on 140 daily solutions. The mean standard deviations of estimated coordinates from repeatability of daily solutions and combined solution are σφ = 2.0 mm, σλ = 2.2 mm and σh = 5.6 mm. In purpose to determine and present the trend of height component the comparison of the data obtained by monitoring the change of sea level and the results of GPS measurement data was investigated. On the basis of the computed relative velocities of points as related to the Euro-Asian plate, the parameters of Euler rotation vector and Euler pole of the Adriatic microplate have been calculated and compared with other solutions. Also, the kinematic research area model has been determined on the basis of the combined solution results and compared with global kinematic models NNR-NUVEL-1A and APKIM2000. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2012.