UNAVCO: EARTHSCOPE PBO – A CULMINATION OF THREE DECADES OF GEODESY INNOVATION

UNAVCO began as an investigator cooperative in 1984 – with the goal of sharing equipment and technologies that were expensive, rapidly changing, and extraordinarily powerful. On the eve of its 30^thanniversary - 2014, this extraordinary power has culminated in a large and robust suite of techniques used across most of the major subdisciplines of the geosciences, fueling some of the most innovative and transformative science of our day. The Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) sets the global standard for a continental scale set of integrated geodetic observing networks.

Technology innovations within geodesy advance the goal of millimeter-level global geodesy, providing new observational capability for contemporary deformation and magmatism in active convergent margin systems. Time scales vary from seconds to millennia, and spatial scales from borehole nanostrains to the global plate circuit. High-precision strain or three-dimensional point observations with borehole strainmeter or Global Positioning System (GPS) observations and geodetic imaging with SAR and LiDAR are used in combination to reveal these complex systems. GPS now combines with strong ground motion accelerometer time series to provide important enhancements to conventional seismology. Geodesy constrains plate kinematics for convergence rate and direction, co-seismic deformation during great and moderate earthquakes, episodic tremor and slip events and related transient deformation, tectono-magmatic interactions, and the possible triggering effects of atmospheric or geomorphic unloading.

As UNAVCO culminates its 30th year of support to a vibrant and diverse research community of investigators, its community has led understanding of the Earth with unprecedented spatial and temporal detail and precision. Continental deformation, plate boundary processes, the earthquake cycle, the geometry and dynamics of magmatic systems, continental groundwater storage, and hydrologic loading, earthquake and tsunami hazards, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, coastal subsidence, wetlands health, soil moisture, groundwater distribution, and space weather are advanced, as well as the understanding of global warming and climate change, sea level rise and dynamic changes in glaciers and large polar ice sheets.