Determination of recent horizontal crustal displacements at the South America/Scotia tectonic plate boundary in Tierra del Fuego by GPS

L. MENDOZA; J. L. HORMAECHEA; D. DEL COGLIANO; R. DIETRICH; M. FRITSCHE; A. RICHTER

Kiel

Congreso; 20 Lateinamerika Kolloquium der Geowisenschaften; 2007

Christian-Albrechts University

The Magallanes-Fagnano fault system is a left-lateral transform system extending more than 600 km and intersecting the Tierra del Fuego Island in the southernmost region of South America. This system accommodates partially the present-day relative movement between the South American and the Scotia tectonics plates. It extends for 300 km, practically in E-W direction, across the island. In this study we present, from repeated GPS observation of geodetic sites located both north and south of the fault system, the results of an homogeneously and rigorous analysis of the complete GPS data set, which covers atemporal lapse of more than 14 years. We have used a unique global reference frame realization based on GPS for the analysis of all observations. As the main kinematic signal contained in the data an E-W relative velocity of about 6 mm/y was estimated. Furthermore, residual deformation will be discussed in detail.