Triangulation of the Earth’s surface and its application to the geodetic velocity field modelling

Abstract

The Earth’s crust is exposed by tectonic processes and is not static over time. Modelling of the Earth’s surface velocities is of utmost importance for research in geodesy, geophysics, structural geology, and other geosciences. It may support positioning, navigation, seismic risk, and volcano notification services, for example. Space geodetic techniques can be used to provide high-quality velocities in a network of geodetic sites. Velocity field modelling should, however, expand the velocities from a discrete set of points to any location in-between. This paper presents four new methods for the Earth’s surface velocity interpolation. Contrary to the widely used approach dividing the velocity field to the horizontal and vertical components, a full 3D interpolation approach is proposed based on the Delaunay triangulation and the n-simplex interpolation. The use of a combination of all three components is advantageous for geophysical interpretation. The proposed interpolation approach is entirely local but enables global modelling, which does not suffer from map projection distortions and singularities at the poles. Various global and regional position/velocity datasets are used to evaluate the performance of the proposed velocity interpolation methods. The latter provide practically the same results when applied to regional velocity field modelling. However, the so-called continuous piecewise quasi-radial 3D velocity field interpolation method is recommended for its favourable properties. It introduces an ellipsoidal Earth model, appropriately considers vertical/up and horizontal velocity components, tends to radial symmetry, and provides continuity for the interpolated velocity components as well as for the estimated uncertainties.