Assessment of High-rate GPS time series at long periods

Abstract:

We present the comparison of 1 Hz GPS waveforms and very broadband seismic waveforms recorded during and after three mega-thrust earthquakes (2003 Hokkaido, 2004 Sumatra and 2011 Tohoku-Oki) for various period bands (T > 30 s) and distances from the epicenter. With this study we aim at providing valuable data between periods of 300s and 1200s, corresponding to long-period surface waves and the first normal mode of the free oscillation of the Earth, respectively. We assess the performance of each dataset at the light of comparisons with synthetic seismic displacement waveforms. We find that GPS is well capable of recovering millimetre ground motion oscillations in a wide range of periods (30 - 1300 s), potentially providing valuable information on the lithosphere and upper-mantle heterogeneities on a scale of 300 - 3000 km.

With the aim of building a database of GPS waveforms we have conducted a study of different processing techniques with the GAMIT and Bernese GPS data processing packages. We show the outline of the planned GPS waveform database, which consists of long period surface wave records of large earthquakes (Mw > 7) of the last decades, and could be used for various seismological applications.