Indian plate kinematic studies by GPS-geodesy

Amongst various space techniques, GPS-geodesy has proved to be an indispensible tool worldwide for geodynamics and the determination of parameters governing seismotectonics. To study the Indian plate kinematics, an IGS station has been established in September 1995 at NGRI, Hyderabad, India, under the Indo-German collaborative research programme. During the first off-line data transmisssion phase, about one to two days per week of observations were taken. The data analysis has been carried out at the University of Bonn using the Bernese Software version 4.0. The Hyderabad data have been processed together with the data from 8 other selected IGS stations in and around the Indian plate. In our preliminary analysis, which concentrated on the ITRF96 frame-consistent part of the data set, we found the motion of the Indian plate with respect to the Eurasian plate to be significantly smaller than the model rate, i.e. 3.7 cm/y for Hyderabad instead of 4.5 cm/y in the NUVEL-1A plate model. We detected no significant motion between Hyderabad and Bangalore, lying 500 km apart in N-S-direction on the Indian plate.