CGRS in Tectonic Study

Scientists from the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) have installed eight additional Thales Micro-Z Continuous Geodetic Reference Stations (CGRS) on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, bringing the array on the island to fourteen. The new stations will enable the CalTech Geologic and Planetary Sciences department to see in better detail the pattern and variation of strain during the seismic cycle along the Sumatran subduction zone. Four of the new stations are telemetered to permit data to be captured on demand via satellite in geosynchronous orbit and linked to the internet. The remaining stations store their data on either 85Mb or 100Mb drives for retrieval at four to six-month intervals.