The ALPS-GPSQUAKENET project A permanent GPS network in the Alps

摘要

One objective of the ALPS-GPSQUAKENET project was the installation of a permanent GPS array in the Alpine Space. The GPS network - also known as the Geodetic Alpine Integrated Network (GAIN) -was funded by the EU Community Initiative INTERREG IIIB Alpine Space Programme. It consists today of roughly 40 permanent GPS stations covering large parts of the Western and Eastern Alps. Many stations of the EPN were integrated in the network processing in order to allow for a densification of the ETRF. Also strategies and standards well established in the EPN community formed a solid foundation for the processing of the data. Additionally data of stations from Austria and Italy were included to increase the spatial resolution.rnThe data of this network are processed by three individual analysis centres from France, Germany and Italy. The analysis is carried out independently by each group using different software packages and analysis strategies. This presentation will summarize the results of the analysis and will show the velocity field estimated with the data spanning approximately 3 years.rnThe results reveal that time series of many sites are still too short to estimate reliable deformation information. Especially the Western Alps are still poorly covered when using only the GAIN stations. Due to the enlargement of the network by stations from Austria and Italy it was possible to estimate significant deformation patterns in the Eastern Alps.