Dynamic characteristics of very-high-rate GPS observations for seismology

GPS observations with higher than once-per-second sampling are becoming increasingly important for seismology. A number of reports have shown that very-high-rate GPS receivers are capable of capturing dynamic ground displacements from significant earthquakes. The higher output rate, however, does not necessarily mean higher frequency content of the corresponding observations. In order to examine dynamic effects on very-high-rate GPS observations, the frequency response characteristics of several geodetic GPS receivers were evaluated using a GPS signal simulator in controlled laboratory conditions. The tested receivers include Trimble Net-R8, NovAtel OEMV, and TOPCON Net-G3A. The experiment results suggest that the dynamic characteristics of the signal tracking loops put a limit on the frequency of the received signals, and all the tested receivers except for Trimble show good signal tracking performance at up to 5 Hz under dynamic stress of 2 G acceleration. The power spectral densities of the kinematic solutions obtained from the simulated seismic motion of the 2008 Iwate-Miyagi Inland earthquake (Mw 6.8) are also evaluated. The power spectral densities of both the NovAtel and TOPCON receivers agree with the simulated ground displacement at up to 5 Hz. By contrast, the Trimble receiver provides a pronounced increase in spectral energy above 2 Hz.