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Abstract:
With the improvement of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), and the advancement of its processing strategies, the long-term amassed GNSS observations of global reference stations have provided essential data for geodesy and geodynamics studies. This current knowledge about the tectonic plate movement is generally applied in various scientific fields; however, questions still remain to be answered. As such, the computation of the velocity field as well as assessing the impact of surface loading on GNSS stations in Africa using the GNSS network solution is of great importance. Based on the new repro3 solution of the International GNSS Service (IGS), we processed GNSS observations of continental Africa from 2009 to 2019 to determine GNSS station secular velocities and analyze the present-day crustal deformation in continental Africa.
Network solutions, including 134 GNSS monitoring stations, have been processed and analyzed using the German Research Center for Geosciences (GFZ) EPOS.P8 software. The result shows a North-Eastward motion of about 26 mm/yr, with mean uncertainty of about 0.19 mm/yr in Africa with respect to the IGSR3 frame. This study further provides a continental-wide velocity field solution for Africa, which can be considered as a contribution to the upcoming African Geodetic Reference Frame (AFREF).
