Expanding TRANS4D’s Scope to Include 3D Crustal Velocity Estimates for a Neighborhood of the Caribbean Plate

Abstract

This paper introduces Version 0.3 of the TRANS4D software, where TRANS4D is short for Transformations in Four Dimensions. TRANS4D enables geospatial professionals and others to transform three-dimensional (3D) positional coordinates across time and among several popular terrestrial reference frames. Version 0.3 includes a crustal velocity model for a neighborhood of the Caribbean plate in the form of 3D crustal velocity estimates at the nodes of a two-dimensional (grid in latitude and longitude. This velocity model supplements existing TRANS4D velocity models for the continental United States and for parts of Alaska and Canada. This paper also introduces a terrestrial reference frame, called the Caribbean Terrestrial Reference Frame of 2014 (CATRF2014), which was derived from horizontal crustal velocities for 25 geodetic stations. These stations are considered to be “stable” relative to one another, because each has a horizontal velocity whose magnitude is less than 1.0 mm/year relative to CATRF2014. This new reference frame is defined in terms of a three-parameter transformation from the International Global Navigation Satellite System Service 2014 (IGS14) reference frame, which can be considered identical to the International Terrestrial Reference Frame of 2014 (ITRF2014). These three parameters correspond to the Euler-pole parameters that hopefully quantify the motion of the stable interior of the Caribbean plate. However, the location of this stable interior is not well known because most of it resides underwater.