GPS and Earthquake Related PhD Research Position in Australia

Summary of the Scholarship:
Scholarship Type: Competition Funded PhD Project, International
Institute: University of Tasmania
School: School of Land and Food
PhD Supervisor: Prof M King
Co-Supervisor: Dr C Watson
Application Deadline: Applications accepted all year round


Project Name : Vertical motion of the Australian plate

Studentship / Scholarship Eligibility and Coverage:

• Students from Australia/New Zealand are eligible for Australian Postgraduate Awards which cover fees and living expenses. Highly qualified applicants may be eligible for Elite (top-up) Scholarships, worth $32,000 tax free per year, a free laptop and pre-application trip to check out Hobart and the University of Tasmania. 
• For International students it is also  available on a competitive basis for students with a strong track record specially, journal publication, MSc in related subjects in English Medium and academic records.

Description:
It is now very important to examine the plate position and its characteristics for forecasting the Earthquake. The ongoing motion of Australia’s crust is dominated by horizontal tectonic motion of approximately 6 cm/yr towards the northeast. This motion is relatively well-constrained by geodetic measurements including GPS, VLBI and SLR (Altamimi et al., 2012; Argus and Heflin, 1995; Tregoning et al., 2013). Recent analysis of GPS data observed across the continent reveals a large portion of the Australian Plate (excluding the SE region) is deforming at < 0.2 mm/yr, making it one of the most stable crustal regions in the world (Tregoning et al., 2013). Non-linear post-seismic relaxation is however clearly evident along the along the east coast of Australia, occurring in response to the 2004 Macquarie ridge earthquake.
By contrast, the vertical motion of the Australian continental crust is much less well known and observations and theory appear to be in conflict. Recent GPS measurements have suggested the vertical motion of the crust at about a dozen sites across Australia is between zero and -1 mm/yr (Altamimi et al., 2011; Burgette et al., 2013; King et al., 2012; Santamaria-Gomez et al., 2012). By contrast, large scale geophysical models and tectonic theory suggest the motion of the crust should be much closer to zero or slightly positive (Mitrovica and Milne, 2002; Tamisiea and Mitrovica, 2011). If the observations are correct this suggests the existence of an unknown large-scale geophysical phenomena; if the observations are biased they will in turn bias estimates of sea level change around the Australian coastline and suggest implications for such measurements globally.

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