This project involves using the Global Positioning System (GPS) in eastern Indonesia, a region of broad deformation where the continental margins of Australia and Southeast Asia and the oceanic plates of the Pacific and Philippine Sea are coming together at rates of 80 to 110 mm/yr. Plate tectonic concepts do not explain the evolution of Indonesia and other diffusely deforming belts except very generally because deformation is not confined to the edges of well-defined, rigid plates. Hence, the study of Indonesia and places like it will be critical in developing more general theories of global tectonics and expanding our knowledge of the dynamics of plate interactions. Eastern Indonesia is at the stage of assembly of the crustal elements, both continental and oceanic, that will eventually form a complex mountain belt. The strain field within such deforming regions is a first-order observation that can constrain ideas about the behavior of the crust and upper mantle in mountain building.
