地殻変動研究における宇宙技術の応用

―数値シミュレーション―

抄録

In crustal dynamics research, it is quite important to study the relation between the tectonic plate motion and the local crustal motion by means of geodetic measurement. Through such study, the mechanism of the local crustal movement will be totally appreciated. Before the space became available, it was impossible to survey a globalscale geodetic network and the plate motion was estimated through indirect geophysical evidences such as seismic slip vector. Recently, owing to the development of space geodesy, it came to be possible to measure direction and length of baselines over thousands of killometers. In this article, the detectability of the tectonic plate motion is discussed through a numerical simulation using a formal error analysis of a VLBI network by comparing the result of simulation with AMl-2 model of the plate motion by Minster and Jordan. The result of simulation shows, for example, that the motion of North American plate relative to Eurasian plate can be detected by two years lasting once a month VLBI observation if there are no systematic effect on the observed VLBI data such as seasonal effect.