JOURNAL GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF INDIA

Vol.85, April 2015, pp.431-433

First Estimate of Plate Motion at Maitri GPS Site,

Indian Base Station at Antarctica

SAPNA GHAVRI, JOSHI K CATHERINE and VINEET K GAHALAUT

CSIR-National Geophysical Research Institute, Hyderabad - 500 007
Email: sapna.ngri@gmail.com; joshicatherine@yahoo.co.in ; vkgahalaut@yahoo.com

Abstract: We analyse GPS data from the Indian permanent GPS station at Maitri for measuring the plate motion at this
site. We find that this site moves at a velocity of 4.6 mm/year predominantly towards north, which is consistent with the
expected plate motion of Antarctic plate at this site.

Keywords: Plate motion, GPS, Antarctica, Indian base station at Maitri.

INTRODUCTION frame. GPS data of all the sites with 30 sec sampling
The Antarctic plate comprising the southern polar interval are processed using GAMIT/GLOBK software
continent is considered to be stable and seismically quiet. version 10.4 (Herring et al 2010a,b) using IGS precise orbits
Yet the crustal deformation studies of this plate are significant and earth rotation parameters. Observations from the MAIT
as the causative phenomena are varied. These studies involve GPS site are only of few epochs covering 4 years without
the assessment of the level of rigidity of the Antarctic plate, any change in receiver and antenna pair. For the period after
comparison of its overall motion with the global plate motion 2002, there was frequent change in instrument set up leading
models, detection of horizontal crustal deformations due to shifts in the time series of coordinates. Further, the
to past and present-day deglaciation, assessment of the effect monument appears to have become unstable after 2002.
of climate change etc. (Bouin and Vigny, 2000) . To Hence in February 2013, we established a new GPS site at
understand the crustal deformation processes in the Antarctic Maitri. Using the data from 1998 to 2002, we obtained the
region, CSIR-National Geophysical Research Institute with loosely constrained solutions from which the station
the support from National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean positions and their velocities are estimated in ITRF2008
Research (NCAOR), established a permanent GPS station (Altamimi et al. 2011), by stabilizing 16 stable continuous
in the year 1997 at the Indian base station, Maitri. In the sites and IGS core reference sites using GLOBK, GLORG
present study we estimate the site velocity of Maitri with
higher accuracy along with the site velocity of other IGS
station located on the Antarctic plate and the euler pole of
the Antarctic plate. A precise velocity estimate for the Indian
station, Maitri, will be important to further study the tectonic Table 1. Velocity of Maitri site along with other nearby IGS Stations
motion of Antarctica, global plate circuit, internal
Long. Lat. VE VN E N Site
deformation of the plate and other glacial and climate related (deg) (deg) (mm/yr) (mm/yr) (mm/yr) (mm/yr) Name
processes.
357.16 -71.67 1.3 11.17 0.18 0.21 VESL
166.67 -77.84 10.26 -10.46 0.98 1.12 MCM4
140.00 -66.66 8.74 -13.87 1.51 1.93 DUM1

115.88 -31.80 39.99 58.52 0.46 0.45 PERT

110.52 -66.28 1.16 -9.81 0.14 0.16 CAS1

96.83 -12.19 47.19 47.99 0.26 0.23 COCO

77.97 -68.58 -2.02 -4.81 0.11 0.14 DAV1

77.57 13.02 41.45 34.6 0.25 0.23 IISC

GPS DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS 73.53 4.19 43.12 37.82 0.79 0.56 MALD

72.37 -7.27 45.88 31.84 0.37 0.31 DGAR

We have analyzed Maitri (MAIT) GPS data from 1998 70.25 -49.35 3.89 -0.72 0.18 0.2 KERG
to 2002 including the permanent GPS stations of the IGS 62.87 -67.60 -3.12 -2.11 0.1 0.13 MAW1
global network available on the Antarctic plate (VESL, 55.48 -4.67 27.8 10.9 0.57 0.44 SEY1
MCM4, DUM1, CAS1, DAV1, MAW1, SYOG) and outside 40.19 -2.99 24.3 15.59 0.59 0.42 MALI
the Antarctic plate (PERT, COCO, IISC, MALD, DGAR, 39.58 -69.00 -3.39 2.4 0.15 0.19 SYOG
KERG, SEY1, MALI, HRAO) to define an optimal reference 27.69 -25.89 16.62 18.52 0.23 0.2 HRAO
11.74 -70.77 -1.21 4.49 0.5 0.57 MAIT

0016-7622/2015-85-4-431/$ 1.00 © GEOL. SOC. INDIA

432 SAPNA GHAVRI AND OTHERS

Fig.1 (a) Site velocity in ITRF2008 at GPS sites on and around the Antarctic plate along with the plate boundaries and earthquakes of
M>6 during 1973-2013. (b) Antarctic plate is zoomed here for better viewing. Green circle with green dot is the antipole of
Antarctic plate estimated in the present study.

JOUR.GEOL.SOC.INDIA, VOL.85, APRIL 2015

 FIRST ESTIMATE OF PLATE MOTION AT MAITRI GPS SITE, INDIAN BASE STATION AT ANTARCTICA 433

Table 2. Euler pole of rotation for the Antarctic plate

CONCLUDING REMARKS
Angular Lat. Long. max min 
velocity, (°N) (°W) (°) (°) (°/Ma)
(°/Ma) Motion of the Antarctic plate is quite spectacular. It
varies from ~4 to 20 mm/year and the direction of motion
Present study 0.1848 57.74 126.90 ±0.41 ±0.40 0.0051
changes dramatically (Fig.1b) from site to site. This is the
Wei-Ping et al. (2009) 0.224 58.69 128.29 0.4 0.3 0.01
Boucher et al. (2004) 0.23 61.8 125.6 0.02 only major plate on the globe which shows so much of
variation in the velocity across the plate. This is primarily
Sella et al. (2002) 0.23 58.5 134 1.6 1 0.01
Larson et al. (1997) 0.24 60.5 125.7 6.6 3.6 0.03
because this plate is surrounded mostly by the divergent
plate margins, namely, the mid-oceanic ridges (Fig.1a), and
DeMets et al. (1994) 0.24 63 115.9 there is no major convergent plate margin for this plate. The
plate is largely aseismic and there is insignificant internal
deformation. This actually causes the plate to spin as also
(Herring et al, 2010a,b). We obtained a site velocity of 4.6 evident from the location of the euler (anti)pole, which is
mm/year towards N345° at Maitri. The horizontal velocities located within the plate, and the large variation in the velocity
for stations considered in the present study are shown in at sites estimated in this study. This aspect can be studied in
Fig.1 and Table 1. Consistency between the velocities of all detail in future.
the sites estimated in the present study and that estimated We hope that with the establishment of a new site we
by the IGS global analysis, including stations from the entire will be able to understand various tectonic, hydrological
world, indicates good quality of our solution. It also suggests and climatic processes in the vicinity of Indian station at
that the estimated site velocity actually represents the plate Maitri, Antarctica.
velocity at this site. We estimated the Euler pole of Antarctic
plate rotation using sites on the Antarctic plate, namely,
VESL, SYOG, MAW1, DAV1, CAS1, MCM4, DUM1, all
located in the interior stable part of the Antarctic plate. The
euler pole estimated in the present study is consistent with
the plate motion model determined using GPS data from
Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) (Wei- Acknowledgements: We appreciate the efforts of many
Ping et al. 2009) as well as with those estimated from other participants from NGRI who attended scientific expeditions
studies (Boucher et al. 2004 ; DeMets et al. 1994), (Table 2). to Antarctica and contributed towards setting up of GPS
and seismological observatories at Maitri. We also
acknowledge NCAOR for financial and logistic support. This
is CSIR-NGRI-HEART contribution.

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(Received: 22 April 2014; Revised form accepted: 11 August 2014)

JOUR.GEOL.SOC.INDIA, VOL.85, APRIL 2015