SCEC Award Number 25325 View PDF
Proposal Category Individual Research Project (Single Investigator / Institution)
Proposal Title Updating GNSS measurements of postseismic deformation after the 2019 Ridgecrest earthquake sequence and site positions in the central Mojave Desert
Investigator(s)
Name Organization
Gareth Funning University of California, Riverside
SCEC Milestones A3-5 SCEC Groups Geodesy, SDOT, CEM
Report Due Date 03/15/2026 Date Report Submitted 05/07/2026
Project Abstract
 The goal of this project was to conduct field GNSS surveys in the Mojave desert to improve coverage and precision of existing GNSS time series and velocities by making additional measurements in areas where the existing GNSS survey data is sparse, imprecise or contains a critical data gap. The data will ultimately be incorporated into the Community Geodetic Model (CGM), and used to improve estimation of geodetic fault slip rates. Postseismic deformation time series from the Ridgecrest area can additionally be used to constrain the constitutive relationships governing the faults and lithosphere in the area, and to validate the Community Rheology Model (CRM). An additional benefit of occasional revisits to GNSS survey benchmarks is building or refreshing institutional knowledge of benchmark locations, which could potentially expedite earthquake response fieldwork in the event of an earthquake occurring in our study area. In total, we occupied 32 survey benchmarks during the project, 16 of which were sites in the Ridgecrest area. The fieldwork was led by a SCEC SURE undergraduate intern, Katie Baraggiotta, who also did some basic GNSS data processing as a quality assurance check, under the supervision of UCR graduate student Karlee Rivera and the PI.
SCEC Community Models Used Community Geodetic Model (CGM)
Usage Description We used the CGM to select GNSS sites that needed remeasuring.
Intellectual Merit Survey-mode GNSS is an inexpensive way to add density to the coverage of GNSS velocities across areas of geophysical interest. In total, we occupied and measured 32 GNSS benchmarks in the course of the project – 16 sites in the Ridgecrest area, and 16 sites elsewhere in the Mojave area. The data will ultimately be incorporated into the Community Geodetic Model (CGM), and used to improve estimation of geodetic fault slip rates and the constitutive relationships governing the faults and lithosphere in the area.
Broader Impacts The fieldwork was led by a SCEC SURE undergraduate intern, Katie Baraggiotta, who also did some basic GNSS data processing as a quality assurance check, under the supervision of UCR graduate student Karlee Rivera.
Project Participants Gareth Funning, PI
Karlee Rivera, graduate student
Katie Baraggiotta, SURE intern
Exemplary Figure Figure 1: Map of the project area, covering the central Mojave desert and Ridgecrest areas. Red circles indicate sites that we measured in the summer of 2025; gray hexagons are the locations of continuous GNSS stations. Solid lines are Quaternary faults from the USGS and CGS; pink dashed line indicates the boundaries of the Naval Air Weapons Station at Ridgecrest.
Linked Publications

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