Computer Aided Design of Networks for Monitoring Crustal Tectonic Activity

Abstract

Recent developments in terrestrial and satellite surveying techniques have led to the establishment of a number of new campaigns to determine recent crustal motions. In the light of this there is an increasing need for an interactive computer aided design program to design suitable measurement schemes.

The problem can be summarised thus: Given the approximate coordinates of a series of possible survey control points and a geological/geophysical model for the region, find the optimal set of (terrestrial and/or space) measurements that need to be made, and the optimal manner in which to make them, in order to recover the precision and reliabilty of the geophysical parameters (rates of motion, direction of motion etc.) to a satisfactory level.

A program has been written that can cope with a number of geological models including transform faults, regional rotation, divergent/convergent motion and multi-block rotation. Various statistical measures, computed from the functional and stochastic models allow the user to check on both the precision of the recovered parameters and the internal and external reliability of the observations. If the network quality is inappropriate, then experiments can be carried out with the addition or removal of both stations and observations until a satisfactory recoverable precision and reliability are achieved.