The Great Basin area in the western United States is part of the Pacific-North America plate boundary zone. This explains its spectacular and changing landscape and its occasional earthquakes. The morphology, geology and geodetic data indicate that most of the Great Basin is under extension. However, because the Pacific plate is not moving away from North America (they are sliding past each other) the extension in the Great Basin is still difficult to explain. To test competing mechanisms, it is important to model the regional strain rate field. We do this mainly by using GPS velocity measurements.
Please see the following pages for more information:
The figure shows a strain map of the Great Basin (see Kreemer, C., Blewitt, G., Hammond, W.C., and Coolbaugh, M.F. (2004) A new strain rate model for the Great Basin and its application to tectonic and geodynamic studies, Eos Trans. AGU, v. 85(47), Fall Meet. Suppl.).
