GPS Used To Monitor Continental Drift 225
metz2000 writes "BBC News is reporting that a team of scientists from Nottingham (UK) are using GPS to measure sea levels and continental drift. The team has around 50 stations across the UK, and use GPS technology to track miniscule changes in altitude and location. This allows the team to gain an understanding of how the UK landmass is likely to change over the coming centuries. They have discovered that the British Isles are tilting, with the north of the country gaining altitude and the south of the country 'sinking'."
Solution? (Score:4, Funny)
just my 2 (euro) cents worth
Alex
Re:Solution? (Score:2)
Re:Solution? (Score:3, Insightful)
"GPS measurements have also allowed scientists to show that the UK is drifting about 2-3 cm each year in a north-easterly direction."
Of course you need to know what the rest of Europe is doing as well. I suspect, if it is on the same techtonic plate as Europe, then Europe is doing the same thing.
Re:Solution? (Score:2)
Accuracy (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Accuracy (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Accuracy (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Accuracy (Score:3, Interesting)
I think the logic is that some of the receivers are upwards of $10,000 USD, which is a very expensive toy to just have laying around, so they send groups of us students out with the receivers all day so that we basically babysit them and make sure no one touches them.
We also have a limited amount of receivers, and a large amount of benchmarks to check, so I believe we c
Re:Accuracy (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Accuracy (Score:5, Informative)
I guess that they are using differential GPS, by which the time delay at a known location is compared to the time-delay at the location of interest. This enables for very accurate estimation of where you are.
On the other hand, at least in California (where they have a GPS network for earthquake monitoring), the network might well be permanent, hence you can do a nice sort of averaging over time. We have found that even with normal GPS, you get nice accuracies over a time period.
Re:Accuracy (Score:3, Informative)
They probably use a scheme similar to dgps: They don't have to know their exact location, they have to know their exact location in respect to the other measurement points around the country. Which is relativly easy to do.
Jeroen
Re:Accuracy (Score:2)
Re:Accuracy (Score:2)
Re:Accuracy (Score:2)
It depends (Score:2, Interesting)
The real question is are the Nottingham group using high grade and control tested equipm
Re:It depends (Score:2)
Since Cape Wrath (the northenmost point of the mainland) is only at around 58 degrees north, it'll be a wee while before our north-easterly drift takes us into the realms of 65 degrees and increasing errors.
How trolls get modded up to interesting is beyond me.
Re:Accuracy (Score:4, Informative)
For continental drift, they need mm level data. I guess, they just leave the station for a longer time to get even more passes.
Re:Accuracy (Score:3, Informative)
measurements below 1cm can be taken by looking at the wavelengths of the signal
integrate thousands of measurements (Score:2)
Re:Accuracy (Score:4, Informative)
This sort of thing has been done in a number of locations. I've been involved with studies like this in Nevada and Italy.
It's hardly suprising that Scotland is rising and England is sinking. The phenomenon is known as 'isostatic rebound' and happens any time a substantial load is removed or added to an area. The massive ice-age glaciers over Scandinavia caused that area to sink and the 'low countries' - especially Holland - to rise. Now that the glaciers are gone, Scandinavia is rising again and the Netherlands are sinking into the sea. The same is probably happening on a smaller scale to Great Britain. In the US, the Appalachian Mountains are eroding away, causing them to rise, and the coastal plains and Mississippi delta, where that sediment is being deposited, are sinking.
This is all a very slow process, millimeters per year, but over time it makes a big difference.
Re:Accuracy (Score:2)
Considering a lot of GPS receivers have an error of + or - 10 feet or so, I wonder if they are using very precise equipment
You are thinking of the consumer-grade GPS receivers, which can be had for $100 and fit in your hand. The next step up in the marketplace, for surveyors, gives ~1cm accuracy after a half hour of measurement. These cost $5000-$10000, yet are portable, but maybe are a backpack rather than handheld. The receivers and methods used in the article are obviously even better and more ex
Re:Accuracy (Score:2)
Regarding systematic error, they are also most likely measuring the drift of the continental plates, and would only care about the rate of change of distance (over very long time scales). So a systematic error of +/-10 feet probably doesn't matter too much.
Scientists used a similar setup at the top of Mt. Everest to determine that
Re:Accuracy (Score:2)
Re:Accuracy (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Accuracy (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Accuracy (Score:2)
Damn... (Score:5, Funny)
Nick...
Make me an offer... (Score:2, Funny)
If you can sort out immigration, USians can apply too - avoid your Iron Curtain before it's too late.
Re:Make me an offer... (Score:2)
Re:Make me an offer... (Score:2)
Re:Make me an offer... (Score:2)
Re:Make me an offer... (Score:2)
Re:Make me an offer... (Score:2)
Re:Damn... (Score:2)
what was that song .. (Score:2)
Lex Luthor, eat your heart out.
Re:Damn... (Score:2)
As if Haggis and deep fried Mars bars weren't enough?
accurate enough (Score:3, Interesting)
I think i heard once that there were two types of recievers, one was more error prone, but gave you an updated location every second, the second was very, very accurate, but took over 10 minutes to get a position fix.
can anyone clue me in here?
Re:accurate enough (Score:2)
Re:accurate enough (Score:2)
Re:accurate enough (Score:2)
Re:accurate enough (Score:2)
No one should need to need to measure continental drift every second. They're not moving apart that fast.
Correction, no one wants to be in the vicinity when they're moving fast enough that measurements every second are important.
The ground does move substantially and quickly during an earthquake.
Proper engineering for buildings in zones prone to have earthquakes depends on knowing details of the ground acceleration spectra that are likely to be encountered. Of course, an accelerometer is likely to be a
Re:accurate enough (Score:2)
First of all, all GPSs take a short while (10-300 seconds) to work out where they are when you first turn them on. How long it takes depends on a number of things:
Re:accurate enough (Score:2)
Militarily, this isn't much use, because mostly you wouldn't want to wait a few hours for the fix to complete, standing in one position.
Re:accurate enough (Score:2)
Re:It's all about integration time (Score:2)
Hand helds don't have an option for setting integration time. You need fancy, expensive receivers for that. Or, you can roll your own, which isn't as hard as it sounds.
How is this different from what every Garmin I have ever used does when you tell it to take time to use averaging to get a more-accurate position, which it does until interrupted?
Population growth and land change (Score:2, Funny)
Now the most populated area of the UK is sinking and the rest rising. If you think about it, it is quite logical. The weight of london alone is billions upon billions of tonnes, the building and auto infrastructure, not to mention several million people.
Earth calling moderators! (Score:2)
The stuff humans account for is miniscule compared to everything else. Think of it in terms of height; human constructions are is in the range of tens of meters, not particularly dense and quite spread out, while the ground below consists of kilometers of rock. It will make no difference whatsoever, at least not by pure weight. Erosion and other effects could be significant.
Re:Population growth and land change (Score:3, Interesting)
In related news .... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Population growth and land change (Score:2)
Why does this sound familliar? (Score:2, Funny)
Oh yeah, that's right... the Titanic...
Tilt (Score:2, Informative)
Isostacy... (Score:2)
I was taught (only a couple of decades ago, honest!) that this sort of rebound after the ice age was supposed to be going on - in fact it was (if I remember correctly) one of the justifications for the Thames flood barrier. However, no-one (at school anyway) ever let on how this rebound was measured. It's nice to know that modern t
Tilting is old news (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Tilting is old news (Score:2)
Spaceborne SAR (Score:2, Interesting)
Slightly OT, but just to mention that imaging microwave radar (as those mounted in the ENVISAT or ERS satellites, for example) is also being used to monitor small changes in elevation, using a technique based on interferometric SAR (which is behind the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission [nasa.gov].
The benefit of using a satellite orbiting around the Earth is that you don't need to deploy all the "base stations". If you want to find out more, google for "differential interferometry" or somesuch :-)
Re:Spaceborne SAR (Score:2)
Volc. A: "The new report just came in. It seems the lava dome is rising about 4cm/day. s**!"
Volc. B: "Lets get the flock outa here NOW!"
Volc. A: "Ok, but I need to get my laptop first."
The important question... (Score:2)
So, is the UK drifting west across the Atlantic, as some of paranoid us Brits fear?
Re:The important question... (Score:3, Informative)
GPS measurements have also allowed scientists to show that the UK is drifting about 2-3 cm each year in a north-easterly direction.
For those interested... (Score:5, Informative)
Using GPS to Separate Crustal Movements and Sea Level Changes at Tide Gauges in the UK [nottingham.ac.uk]
Application of the Dual-GPS Concept to Monitoring Vertical Land Movements at Tide Gauges [nottingham.ac.uk]
Accuracy (Score:5, Interesting)
Geophysicists have been exploiting GPS since the mid-1980s, using it to measure continental drift and the movement of the Earth's surface in geologically active regions. They have been able to obtain accurate surface measurements to within a few millimeters through a procedure known as "carrier tracking", which is even more accurate than differential GPS. Carrier tracking actually senses the phase of the carrier signals on which the location code sequences are broadcast. It is, not surprisingly, a tricky and subtle procedure, and not applicable for general use.
Silly question... (Score:2)
Could be useful for tracking moving things like land masses and ocean levels.
Question: If our land masses are moving, and water moves, what ever do we actually calibrate the satalights with in the first place?
The only thing that comes to mind is the axis of the earth. Would someone wiser then I in this area el
Re:Silly question... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Silly question... (Score:2)
Satellite (GPS & SLR) and VLBI measurements are all used to determine the relative movements of different points on the Earth (where the lasers or receivers are). The reference frame is then constructed from these point to point measurements using a "no-net rotation" constraint - any rotation of all of the stations is assumed to be a rotation of the Earth.
It is not perfect, but it is the best we've got.
This is coordinated by the IER
South is sinking? (Score:3, Funny)
I always new there was something fishy in the south side of britain. Ah well.. atleast now they have showed that it will hit rock bottom soon
Whats the point of having excellent karma if not to spend it every once in a while?
Forces of nature (Score:2)
The "tilting" is just an observation of the variying stretch of an equatorial bulge, due to centrifugal force. Also, the rotational axis wobbles between 21.5 and 24.5 degrees and the GPS precision varies slightly due to moment of inertia.
Scientists from Nottingham... Not quite.
Re:Forces of nature (Score:2)
Some history... (Score:2, Informative)
GREAT DISCOVERY *sarcasm*
Since the late pleistocene the big icesheets on top of Northern Europe disappeared by global climat change from glacial to interglacial (cfr. Iversen model). As a concequence of this loss of mass on top of these plates they began to bounce back up. Imagine taking a piece of drifting wood, push it down. If you lift your finger it will rise
Re:Some history... (Score:2)
The phenomenon in central Sweden was then and still is apparent, with an approximate uplift of 2 cm per year; in 50 years that is an uplift of one meter! This has an obvious effects for the boat traffic and harbours along the very shallow coast line of that region; the Norwegian side has steep slopes. Old coast line maps soon become outdated, borde
Some of this is not new (Score:2, Informative)
Environmental Geology... (Score:2)
Anyways, we covered plate tectonics and this movement stuff and its very interesting.
If you need some kind of science class and you had your chem and phys in highschool and want to try something different, your university probably offers environmental geology and its an absolutely amazing class. Ive had a really easy time with it
They discovered the south was sinking ? (Score:2, Informative)
Relativity (Score:3, Interesting)
GPS measurements have also allowed scientists to show that the UK is drifting about 2-3 cm each year in a north-easterly direction.
I disagree. The UK is only drifting north. Since we have no east or west pole, the east-west component of the velocity can only be stated relative to some other plate. We could just as well assert that the UK is stationary in the east-west direction, and the other plate is moving west.
Re:Relativity (Score:2)
Besides, shouldn't it be that the UK is just trying to get to the next day ever that much faster? Are we going to adjust the clocks now to account for the fact that the sun rises in Greenwich a few microseconds earlier?
Re:Relativity (Score:2)
No discovery here (Score:2, Informative)
This was already common enough knowledge for those interested in the subject ... the south east & east anglia are sinking, the north west rising.
Chicken Little Anyone? (Score:2, Funny)
Oh--wait--the ground is rising...
umm--nevermind
Old news (Score:2, Informative)
I seem to recall being told this in the early 1980s at school.
Apperently it's the "rebound" effect. In the last ice age all the ice caused Scotland and Northern England to sink under it's weight.
Since it all melted it's been slowly rising.
I can't remember why southern England is sinking though. Maybe there's a pivet somewhere through Shefield or something ?
This is not new (Score:2, Informative)
doing this since the start of GPS @1990 (Score:3, Informative)
Selective Availibility (Score:2)
discovered? (Score:2)
They didn't discover this. The fact that the north is rising and the south sinking has been known for quite some time-- certainly longer than the GPS constellation has been up. I have a book here somewhere (can't find anything here!) that was written in the late sixties that mentions it as established fact, then positing the theory that ice age glaciers "pushed dow
How about the GPS precision? (Score:2)
This isn't exactly new (Score:2)
www.pgc.nrcan.gc.ca/geodyn/docs/wcda_bc/content.h
My first real programming job was at the Pacific Geoscience center (a decade ago), maintining the unix programs and scripts that downloaded seismic data from these remote GPS stations.
That would explain it, then (Score:3, Funny)
They have discovered that the British Isles are tilting, with the north of the country gaining altitude and the south of the country 'sinking'
That explains the difference in house prices up North and down South. I wonder when they'll start advertising southern homes as "temporary accomodation"? :o)
Umm, I thought motion was relative (Score:2)
They have discovered that the British Isles are tilting, with the north of the country gaining altitude and the south of the country 'sinking'.
Either that, or the GPS satellite positions are tilting!
Privacy (Score:2)
Plate Boundary Observatory. (Score:2, Informative)
SCIGN -- Southern California Integrated GPS Network
http://www.scign.org/
This GPS array has 250 active stations throughout SoCal continuously monitoring crustal deformation. SCIGN was started after the 1994 Northridge Earthquake and has helped the determination of the velocity field in Southern California produced by SCEC.
An interactive map of station locations can be found at:
http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/scign/Analysis/
SCEC -- Southern California
Re:Personal use (Score:2, Funny)
They are measuring slow changes, not quick seismic vibrations.
Jeroen
Re:what next? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Wonderful! (Score:2, Insightful)
On the contrary, while the receivers that you spend a hundred bucks on are indeed not accurate enough, GPS based geodesy is a raging success. They use very expensive receivers with multiple frequencies and occupy sites for hours at a time to get the kinds of numbers needed for geodetic measurements. Been going on for years. The major inaccuracies have to do with index-of-refraction effects in the atmosphere (hence the need for multi-frequency instruments).
Re:Wonderful! (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, rates range up to 20 cm/year in some places. In this case, I thing they were saying 2-3 cm/yr. This is very measureable by continuous GPS from permanent stations; see a lot of these other comments for why.
These GPS networks have been used with great success over the past 15 years or so in places like Japan, California, and New Zealand, to name a few. Nice to see it getting put in in other places
Re:Language implications (Score:2)
Tilting up in the north and down in south won't change this. If it had been the other way around though..
Unless of course you think that going north on a map is going down for some reason.
To quote the Kopyright Liberation Front (The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu):
Bolton, Barnsley, Nelson, Colne, Burnley Bradford, Buxton, Crewe, Warrington, Widnes, Wigan, Leeds, Northwich, Nantwich, Knutsford, Hull, Sale, Salford, Southport, Leigh, Derby, Kearsley Keighley Maghull, Harrogate, Huddersfield, Oldham, Lancs, Gr
Re:Language implications (Score:2)
Nay lad, that's It's Grim Up North.
Anyroad. Nowt wrong wi' t'south sinkin'. Get drownded, thee southern bastards!
Re:Language implications (Score:2)
As for house prices, Edinburgh has gone through an explosive increase in the past few years, mostly due to the Scottish Parliament. You
Re:Old news (Score:2)
Altometer sucks on boat (Score:2)
yeah, it seems to be stuck on 0 all the time.
(yeah, yeah, I know water is not always at sea level, it's a joke)
Re:Altometer on a boat?! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Accuracy? (Score:2)
For a GPS to give accurate absolute altitude, it needs to have a map of all the local gravitational anomalies on the planet (or at least in the ar
Re:And in recent news... (Score:2)