Suchergebnisse

The three Begur experiments have been conducted on March, 16-19, 1999, which was the first altimeter calibration ever developed in Spain and the first Alt-B altimeter calibration made in the Mediterranean Sea; on July, 4-7, 2000, and on August, 25-28, 2002. Direct absolute altimeter calibration, estimating the TOPEX Alt-B bias, was made from direct overflights using GPS buoys. This method does not require any modelling of geoid and tidal error. Other main objective of the campaigns was to map with GPS buoys the Mean Sea Surface, MSS, along an ascending T/P groundtrack about 15-20 km from the coast, using coastal tide gauge measurements. This method requires geographical mapping of geoid and ocean tides which reduces the accuracy of the bias estimate by a factor of two. Indirect absolute altimeter calibration is possible for any satellite crossing the MSS, with the only requirement that tide gauges are operational during the overflight. In the framework of the JASON-1 CNES/NASA mission, a campaign was conducted on June 9-17, 2003, in the Absolute Calibration Site of the Island of Ibiza. The objective was to determine the local marine geoid slope under the ascending (187) and descending (248) Jason-1 ground tracks, in order to allow a better extrapolation of the open-ocean altimetric data with on-shore tide gauge locations, and thereby improve the overall precision of the calibration process. We present preliminary results on Jason-1 altimeter calibration using the derived marine geoid: from this analysis the altimeter bias is estimated to be 120 ± 5 mm. ; These campaigns have been supported by the Spanish Government, Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología CICYT R+D Projects in Space Research Ref.: ESP97-1816-CO4 and ESP2001-4534-PE. GPS (SANB) and tide gauge data from Ibiza and San Antonio were obtained also within the framework of the ESEAS-RI EU project under contract EVR1-CT-2002-40025. ; Peer reviewed

There is renewed interest in studying the active and complex northeastern Caribbean plate boundary to better understand subduction zone processes and for earthquake and tsunami hazard assessments [e.g., ten Brink and Lin, 2004; ten Brink et al., 2004; Grindlay et al, 2005]. To study the active tectonics of this plate boundary, the GEOPRICO-DO (Geological, Puerto Rico-Dominican) marine geophysical cruise, carried out between 28 March and 17 April 2005 (Figure 1), studied the active tectonics of this plate boundary. Initial findings from the cruise have revealed a large underwater landslide, and active faults on the seafloor (Figures 2a and 2c). These findings indicate that the islands within this region face a high risk from tsunami hazards, and that local governments should be alerted in order to develop and coordinate possible mitigation strategies. The cruise collected multibeam bathymetry, gravity, magnetic, high-resolution seismic, deep seismic sounding, and multichannel seismic reflection data, which are currently being processed and interpreted (Table 1). In early November 2005, 10 ocean-bottom seismometers (OBS) that had been deployed northeast of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands (Figure 1) during the cruise were recovered. These OBS recorded data during the cruise and the local seismicity between April and October 2005.