The PIs will use the Global Positioning System (GPS) to monitor crustal motion across a plate boundary complex between the Indo-Australian and Pacific plates. This complex, which includes the Hebrides arc, the Fiji Plateau, the Lau Basin and the Tonga arc, is characterized by very high rates of plate convergence and back-arc spreading. By using GPS to establish inter-island baselines that straddle many of the major tectonic elements in the region, it will be possible, by repeated observation of these baselines, to directly observe the kinematics of plate convergence, intra-arc strain and back-arc spreading. The consortium that will perform the experiment included North Carolina State University, Cornell University, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Colorado, the National Geodetic Survey, ORSTOM (New Caledonia) and the University of New South Wales (Australia).
