Continental Deformation, Earthquake Strain Accumulation, Plate Motion, and Postglacial Rebound From a Combination of Space Geodetic Techniques

The NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) offers unique research opportunities to highly-talented scientists to engage in ongoing NASA research projects at a NASA Center, NASA Headquarters, or at a NASA-affiliated research institute. These one- to three-year fellowships are competitive and are designed to advance NASA's missions in space science, Earth science, aeronautics, space operations, exploration systems, and astrobiology. This specific opportunity focuses on applying NASA technology (GPS, INSAR, VLBI, SLR, and GRACE) to a range of Earth phenomena, including earthquake strain accumulation, metropolitan Los Angeles deformation, western North America plate tectonics, plate motion, postglacial rebound, ice sheet changes, sea level rise, the earth's reference frame, spin axis wander, and earth center motion. The research will analyze positions of the 250 Global Positioning System receivers in the metropolitan Los Angeles SCIGN array, distinguish motion due to man managing water and oil resources from earthquake strain accumulation, and evaluate which faults are going to slip in moderate and large earthquakes to release the strain. The fellowship will result in a more accurate assessment of seismic hazard in metropolitan Los Angeles and help build a model of postglacial rebound of Canada, Fennoscandia, and Antarctica using space geodesy, which will allow gravity change observed with GRACE due to current ice sheet changes in Greenland and Antarctica to be distinguished from gravity change due to postglacial rebound.