SOURCE:

Faculty: Environmental Sciences
Department: Surveying & Geo-informatics

CONTRIBUTORS:

Onwuzuligbo, C. U.
Ono, M. O

ABSTRACT:

Crustal motions, attributed to the activities of the Convectional Currents in the Earth’s Mantle, is one of the natural events that occur on Earth. The unavoidability of the resultant effects of these activities leaves man helpless in the face of the events, but its study and predictability give him some amount of hope reduce loss of lives and property. Nigeria and indeed the West African Region of Africa have always been perceived as aseismic and as a result there is no preparation for earthquakes, tremors, volcanoes and other natural disasters caused by Earth motions. The aim of this study is to investigate the Motions of the Nigerian Region of the Nubian Plate using GNSS CORs Technology between 2012 and 2014. The study used the GAMIT/GLOBK softwareto analyze the daily GPS CORs data of the NIGNET from 2012 to 2014, using GAMIT Software; evaluated the velocity of the tectonic motions of Nigeria within the period using GLOBK Software; modeled the directions of the crustal motion within the period;and evaluated the quality of data from the different stations as an assessment of the health of the Network. The NIGNET stations for years 2012 to 2014 were processed with ten International GNSS Service (IGS) stations chosen for network stabilization. The mean velocity of the Network was found to be 22.5625 ±0.32583mm/yr East and 18.93±0.23417mm/yr North and 2.48±1.19mm/yr for the Up component and position solutions showed a displacement to the North East direction in agreement with Altamimiet al (2011) and Bawa, et al (2019). The time series result showed that ABUZ performed best, logging data for a total of 2.99 years and the worst is MDGR 0.02yrs translating to only 8.3days which was removed as an outlier. It was recommended that all stakeholders should intensify efforts to densify the Continuously Observing Reference Stations (CORs) in the Country, and the efforts be concentrated along the hypothetical Ifewara-Zungeru fault and the eastern fault line suspected to have been covered by siltation. OSGOF should also investigate MDGR, RUST, GEMB, CGGT, FPNO, and FUTA to correct their inability to log efficiently.