Inflation of Long Valley Caldera from one year of continuous GPS observations
A permanent Global Positioning System receiver at Casa Diablo Hot Springs, Long Valley Caldera, California was installed in January, 1993, and has operated almost continuously since then. The data have been transmitted daily to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for routine analysis with data from the Fiducial Laboratories for an International Natural sciences Network (FLINN) by the JPL FLINN analysis center. Results from these analyses have been used to interpret the on going deformation at Long Valley, with data excluded from periods when the antenna was covered under 2.5 meters of snow and from some periods when Anti Spoofing was enforced on the GPS signal. The remaining time series suggests that uplift of the resurgent dome of Long Valley Caldera during 1993 has been 2.5±1.1 cm/yr and horizontal motion has been 3.0±0.7 cm/yr at S53W in a no-net-rotation global reference frame, or 1.5±0.7 cm/yr at S14W relative to the Sierra Nevada block. These rates are consistent with uplift predicted from frequent horizontal strain measurements. Spectral analysis of the observations suggests that tidal forcing of the magma chamber is not a source of the variability in the 3 dimensional station location. These results suggest that remotely operated, continuously recording GPS receivers could prove to be a reliable tool for volcano monitoring throughout the world.