The GAGE Data and Field Response to the 2019 Ridgecrest Earthquake Sequence

2020 ◽  
Vol 91 (4) ◽  
pp. 2075-2086 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glen S. Mattioli ◽  
David A. Phillips ◽  
Kathleen M. Hodgkinson ◽  
Chris Walls ◽  
David J. Mencin ◽  
...  

Abstract The July 2019 Ridgecrest sequence was observed in exquisite detail by the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Geodetic Facility for the Advancement of Geoscience (GAGE) Network of the Americas (NOTA), which has a dense array of continuously observing Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) stations and subarrays of strain and seismic borehole networks in southern California. Two hundred and eighteen GNSS and 10 borehole NOTA stations within 250 km of the epicentral area recorded the sequence. Special downloads of high-rate data from sites within a specified radius of each earthquake were initiated by the GAGE Facility for the time period of 1.5 days before and 1.5 days after each event to ensure transient deformation was captured at a high-temporal resolution. Rapid field deployments of temporary GNSS stations were carried out by UNAVCO in support of NSF-funded investigators and U.S. Geological Survey activities. The data recorded by the permanent network are available from the GAGE Facility’s Data Center at UNAVCO, data recorded at the temporary campaign sites will also be made available on completion of data collection. The OpenTopography project, of which UNAVCO is a partner, released a preliminary pre-event digital surface model of the area covering the Ridgecrest earthquake sequence to support the ongoing imaging efforts to measure the deformation from these events. In this article, we document the significant amount of detailed, open-access geodetic data available from GAGE to study this sequence and advance our understanding of earthquake processes, the geodynamics of the California eastern shear zone, and our capacity to respond to damaging earthquakes for research.

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 1170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cintia Carbajal Henken ◽  
Lisa Dirks ◽  
Sandra Steinke ◽  
Hannes Diedrich ◽  
Thomas August ◽  
...  

Passive imagers on polar-orbiting satellites provide long-term, accurate integrated water vapor (IWV) data sets. However, these climatologies are affected by sampling biases. In Germany, a dense Global Navigation Satellite System network provides accurate IWV measurements not limited by weather conditions and with high temporal resolution. Therefore, they serve as a reference to assess the quality and sampling issues of IWV products from multiple satellite instruments that show different orbital and instrument characteristics. A direct pairwise comparison between one year of IWV data from GPS and satellite instruments reveals overall biases (in kg/m 2 ) of 1.77, 1.36, 1.11, and −0.31 for IASI, MIRS, MODIS, and MODIS-FUB, respectively. Computed monthly means show similar behaviors. No significant impact of averaging time and the low temporal sampling on aggregated satellite IWV data is found, mostly related to the noisy weather conditions in the German domain. In combination with SEVIRI cloud coverage, a change of shape of IWV frequency distributions towards a bi-modal distribution and loss of high IWV values are observed when limiting cases to daytime and clear sky. Overall, sampling affects mean IWV values only marginally, which are rather dominated by the overall retrieval bias, but can lead to significant changes in IWV frequency distributions.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mauricio Kenji Yamawaki ◽  
Felipe Geremia-Nievinski ◽  
João Francisco Monico

Global Navigation Satellite System Reflectometry (GNSS-R) has emerged as a promising remote sensing technique for coastal sea level monitoring. The GNSS-R based on signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) observations employs a single antenna and a conventional receiver. It performs best for low elevation satellites, where direct and reflected radio waves are very similar in polarization and direction of arrival. One of the disadvantages of SNR-based GNSS-R for sea level altimetry is its low temporal resolution, which is of the order of one hour for each independent satellite pass. Here we present a proof-of-concept based on a synthetic vertical array. It exploits the mechanical movement of a single antenna at high rate (about 1 Hz). SNR observations can then be fit to a known modulation, of the order of the antenna sweeping rate. We demonstrate that centimetric altimetry precision can be achieved in a 5-minute session. [©2021 IEEE]


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sibo Zhang ◽  
Jean-Christophe Calvet ◽  
José Darrozes ◽  
Nicolas Roussel ◽  
Frédéric Frappart ◽  
...  

Abstract. This work aims to assess the estimation of surface volumetric soil moisture (VSM) using the Global Navigation Satellite System Interferometric Reflectometry (GNSS-IR) technique. Year-round observations were acquired from a grassland site in southwestern France using an antenna consecutively placed at two contrasting heights above the ground surface (3.3 or 29.4 m). The VSM retrievals are compared with two independent reference datasets: in situ observations of soil moisture, and numerical simulations of soil moisture and vegetation biomass from the ISBA (Interactions between Soil, Biosphere and Atmosphere) land surface model. Scaled VSM estimates can be retrieved throughout the year removing vegetation effects by the separation of growth and senescence periods and by the filtering of the GNSS-IR observations that are most affected by vegetation. Antenna height has no significant impact on the quality of VSM estimates. Comparisons between the VSM GNSS-IR retrievals and the in situ VSM observations at a depth of 5 cm show a good agreement (R2 = 0.86 and RMSE = 0.04 m3 m−3). It is shown that the signal is sensitive to the grass litter water content and that this effect triggers differences between VSM retrievals and in situ VSM observations at depths of 1 cm and 5 cm, especially during light rainfall events.


2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (11) ◽  
pp. 1885-1892 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giorgio De Guidi ◽  
Alessia Vecchio ◽  
Fabio Brighenti ◽  
Riccardo Caputo ◽  
Francesco Carnemolla ◽  
...  

Abstract. On 24 August 2016 a strong earthquake (Mw = 6.0) affected central Italy and an intense seismic sequence started. Field observations, DInSAR (Differential INterferometry Synthetic-Aperture Radar) analyses and preliminary focal mechanisms, as well as the distribution of aftershocks, suggested the reactivation of the northern sector of the Laga fault, the southern part of which was already rebooted during the 2009 L'Aquila sequence, and of the southern segment of the Mt Vettore fault system (MVFS). Based on this preliminary information and following the stress-triggering concept (Stein, 1999; Steacy et al., 2005), we tentatively identified a potential fault zone that is very vulnerable to future seismic events just north of the earlier epicentral area. Accordingly, we planned a local geodetic network consisting of five new GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) stations located a few kilometres away from both sides of the MVFS. This network was devoted to working out, at least partially but in some detail, the possible northward propagation of the crustal network ruptures. The building of the stations and a first set of measurements were carried out during a first campaign (30 September and 2 October 2016). On 26 October 2016, immediately north of the epicentral area of the 24 August event, another earthquake (Mw = 5.9) occurred, followed 4 days later (30 October) by the main shock (Mw = 6.5) of the whole 2016 summer–autumn seismic sequence. Our local geodetic network was fully affected by the new events and therefore we performed a second campaign soon after (11–13 November 2016). In this brief note, we provide the results of our geodetic measurements that registered the co-seismic and immediately post-seismic deformation of the two major October shocks, documenting in some detail the surface deformation close to the fault trace. We also compare our results with the available surface deformation field of the broader area, obtained on the basis of the DInSAR technique, and show an overall good fit.


2020 ◽  
Vol 223 (2) ◽  
pp. 862-874 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Melgar ◽  
Athanassios Ganas ◽  
Tuncay Taymaz ◽  
Sotiris Valkaniotis ◽  
Brendan W Crowell ◽  
...  

SUMMARY Here, we present the results of a kinematic slip model of the 2020 Mw 6.7 Doğanyol-Sivrice, Turkey Earthquake, the most important event in the last 50 yr on the East Anatolian Fault Zone. Our slip model is constrained by two Sentinel-1 interferograms and by 5 three-component high-rate GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) recordings close to the earthquake source. We find that most of the slip occurs predominantly in three regions, two of them at between 2 and 10 km depth and a deeper slip region extending down to 20 km depth. We also relocate the first two weeks of aftershocks and find a distribution of events that agrees with these slip features. The HR-GNSS recordings suggest a predominantly unilateral rupture with the effects of a directivity pulse clearly seen in the waveforms and in the measure peak ground velocities. The slip model supports rupture propagation from northeast to southwest at a relatively slow speed of 2.2 km s−1 and a total source duration of ∼20 s. In the absence of near-source seismic stations, space geodetic data provide the best constraint on the spatial distribution of slip and on its time evolution.


2020 ◽  
Vol 91 (4) ◽  
pp. 2108-2123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin A. Brooks ◽  
Jessica Murray ◽  
Jerry Svarc ◽  
Eleyne Phillips ◽  
Ryan Turner ◽  
...  

Abstract The U.S. Geological Survey’s geodetic response to the 4–5 July 2019 (Pacific time) Ridgecrest earthquake sequence comprised primarily the installation and/or reoccupation of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) monumentation. Our response focused primarily on the United States’ Navy’s China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station base (NAWSCL). This focus was because much of the surface rupture occurred on the NAWSCL and because of NAWSCL access restrictions only permitting Federal and State of California personnel. In total, we measured or are still measuring at 24 sites, 14 of which were on the NAWSCL and, as of this writing, operational. The majority of sites were set up as continuous stations logging at either 1 sample per second or 1 sample per 15 s. Two stations were recording a 200 m cross-rupture aperture starting ∼10  hr after the M 6.4 event, and they recorded the coseismic displacements of the M 7.1. Approximately, 1 hr after the M 7.1 event, two new stations were recording a ∼200  m cross-rupture aperture of the surface rupture. In the days following, we established the rest of the stations ranging to a distance of ∼15  km from the M 7.1 principal rupture trace. The lack of differential displacement across the M 6.4 rupture during the M 7.1 event suggests that it did not reactivate the M 6.4 plane. The lack of differential cross-fault displacement for both events suggests that rapid shallow afterslip did not occur at those two locations. The postseismic time series from these stations shows centimeters of horizontal displacement over periods of a few months. They record a mixture of fault-parallel and fault-normal displacements that, in conjunction with analysis of more spatially complete Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar displacement fields, suggest that both poroelastic and afterslip phenomena occur along the M 6.4 and 7.1 rupture planes. Using preliminary data from these and other regional stations, we also explore the Ridgecrest sequence’s effect on regional GNSS time series and the differentiation of long-term postseismic motions and secular deformation rates. We find that redefining a common-mode noise filter using different GNSS stations that are assumed to be unaffected by the earthquakes results in small but systematic differences in the regional velocity field estimate.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonie Bernet ◽  
Elmar Brockmann ◽  
Thomas von Clarmann ◽  
Niklaus Kämpfer ◽  
Emmanuel Mahieu ◽  
...  

<div> <div>Water vapour in the atmosphere is not only a strong greenhouse gas, but also affects many atmospheric processes such as the formation of clouds and precipitation. With increasing temperature, Integrated Water Vapour (IWV) is expected to increase. Analysing how atmospheric water vapour changes in time is therefore important to monitor ongoing climate change. To determine whether IWV increases in Switzerland as expected, we asses IWV trends from a tropospheric water radiometer (TROWARA) in Bern, from a Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometer at Jungfraujoch and from the Swiss network of ground-based Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) stations. In addition, trends are assessed from reanalysis data, using the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) reanalysis (ERA5) and the Modern-Era Retrospecitve Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA-2).</div> <div>Ground-based GNSS data are well suited for IWV trends due to their high temporal resolution and the spatially dense networks. However, they are highly sensitvie to instrumental changes and care has to be taken when determining GNSS based trends. We therefore use a straightforward trend method to account for jumps in the GNSS data when instrumental changes were performed.</div> <div>Our data show mostly positive IWV trends between 2 and 5% per decade in Switzerland. GNSS trends are significant for some stations and the significance has the tendency to increase with altitude. Further, we found that IWV scales on average to lower tropospheric temperatures as expected, except in winter. However, the correlation between IWV and temperature based on reanalysis data is spatially incoherent. Besides our positive IWV trends, we found a good agreement of radiometer, GNSS and reanalysis data in Bern. Further, we found a dry bias of the FTIR compared to GNSS data at Jungfraujoch, due to the restriction of FTIR to clear-sky conditions. Our results are generally consistent with the positive water vapour feedback in a warming climate. We show that ground-based GNSS networks provide a valuable source for regional climate monitoring with high spatial and temporal resolution, but homogeneously reprocessed data and advanced trend techniques are needed to account for data jumps.</div> </div>


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 1543
Author(s):  
Antonino Maltese ◽  
Claudia Pipitone ◽  
Gino Dardanelli ◽  
Fulvio Capodici ◽  
Jan-Peter Muller

Many factors can influence the displacements of a dam, including water level variability and environmental temperatures, in addition to the dam composition. In this work, optical-based classification, thermal diachronic analysis, and a quasi-PS (Persistent Scatter) Interferometric SAR technique have been applied to determine both forcing factors and resulting displacements of the crest of the Castello dam (South Italy) over a one-year time period. The dataset includes Sentinel-1A images acquired in Interferometric Wide swath mode using the Terrain Observation with Progressive Scans SAR (TOPSAR); Landsat 8 Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) thermal images, and Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) for interpreting the motion of the top of the dam retrieved via interferometry. Results suggest that it is possible to monitor both dam water level and temperature periodic forcing factors and resulting displacements via a synergistic use of different satellite images.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 2287
Author(s):  
Javier Vaquero-Martínez ◽  
Manuel Antón

After 30 years since the beginning of the Global Positioning System (GPS), or, more generally, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) meteorology, this technique has proven to be a reliable method for retrieving atmospheric water vapor; it is low-cost, weather independent, with high temporal resolution and is highly accurate and precise. GNSS ground-based networks are becoming denser, and the first stations installed have now quite long time-series that allow the study of the temporal features of water vapor and its relevant role inside the climate system. In this review, the different GNSS methodologies to retrieve atmospheric water vapor content re-examined, such as tomography, conversion of GNSS tropospheric delay to water vapor estimates, analyses of errors, and combinations of GNSS with other sources to enhance water vapor information. Moreover, the use of these data in different kinds of studies is discussed. For instance, the GNSS technique is commonly used as a reference tool for validating other water vapor products (e.g., radiosounding, radiometers onboard satellite platforms or ground-based instruments). Additionally, GNSS retrievals are largely used in order to determine the high spatio-temporal variability and long-term trends of atmospheric water vapor or in models with the goal of determining its notable influence on the climate system (e.g., assimilation in numerical prediction, as input to radiative transfer models, study of circulation patterns, etc.).


2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 1931-1946 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sibo Zhang ◽  
Jean-Christophe Calvet ◽  
José Darrozes ◽  
Nicolas Roussel ◽  
Frédéric Frappart ◽  
...  

Abstract. This work assesses the estimation of surface volumetric soil moisture (VSM) using the global navigation satellite system interferometric reflectometry (GNSS-IR) technique. Year-round observations were acquired from a grassland site in southwestern France using an antenna consecutively placed at two contrasting heights above the ground surface (3.3 and 29.4 m). The VSM retrievals are compared with two independent reference datasets: in situ observations of soil moisture, and numerical simulations of soil moisture and vegetation biomass from the ISBA (Interactions between Soil, Biosphere and Atmosphere) land surface model. Scaled VSM estimates can be retrieved throughout the year removing vegetation effects by the separation of growth and senescence periods and by the filtering of the GNSS-IR observations that are most affected by vegetation. Antenna height has no significant impact on the quality of VSM estimates. Comparisons between the VSM GNSS-IR retrievals and the in situ VSM observations at a depth of 5 cm show good agreement (R2= 0.86 and RMSE = 0.04 m3 m−3). It is shown that the signal is sensitive to the grass litter water content and that this effect triggers differences between VSM retrievals and in situ VSM observations at depths of 1 and 5 cm, especially during light rainfall events.


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