Geoid Validation on the Baltic Sea Using Ship-borne GNSS Data

Abstract

We studied geoid validation using ship-borne global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) on the Baltic Sea. We obtained geoid heights by combining GNSS–inertial measurement unit observations, tide gauge data, and a physical sea model. We used two different geoid models available for the area. The ship route was divided into lines and the lines were processed separately. The GNSS results were reduced to the sea surface using attitude and draft parameters available from the vessel during the campaign. For these lines, the residual errors between ellipsoidal height versus geoid height and absolute dynamic topography varied between 0 and 15?cm, grand mean being 2?cm. The mean standard deviations of the original time series were approximately 11?cm and reduced to below 5?cm for the time series filtered with 10?min moving average. We showed that it is possible to recover geoid heights from the GNSS observations at sea and validate existing geoid models in a well-controlled area.     

Degradation of unconsolidated Quaternary landforms in the western North America

One of the major goals of geomorphology is to understand the rate of landscape evolution and the constraints that erosion sets on the longevity of land surfaces. The latter has also turned out to be vital in modern applications of cosmogenic exposure dating and interpretation of lichenometric data from unconsolidated landforms. Because the effects of landform degradation have not been well documented, disagreements exist among researchers regarding the importance of degradation processes in the dating techniques applied to exposures. Here, we show that all existing qualitative data and quantitative markers of landform degradation collectively suggest considerable lowering of the surface of unconsolidated landforms over the typical life span of Quaternary moraines or fault scarps. Degradation is ubiquitous and considerable even on short time scales of hundreds of years on steeply sloping landforms. These conservative analyses are based entirely on field observations of decreasing slope angles of landforms over the typical range of ages in western North America and widely accepted modeling of landscape degradation. We found that the maximum depth of erosion on fault scarps and moraines is on average 34% of the initial height of the scarp and 25% of the final height of the moraine. Although our observations are limited to fault scarps and moraines, the results apply to any sloping unconsolidated landform in the western North America. These results invalidate the prevailing assumption of no or little surface lowering on sloping unconsolidated landforms over the Quaternary Period and affirm that accurate interpretations of lichen ages and cosmogenically dated boulder ages require keen understanding of the ever-present erosion. In our view, the most important results are twofold: 1) to show with a large data set that degradation affects universally all sloping unconsolidated landforms, and 2) to unambiguously show that even conservative estimates of the total lowering of the surface operate at time and depth scales that significantly interfere with cosmogenic exposure and lichen dating.