The Plate Boundary Observatory (PBO) component of EarthScope is a geodetic observatory designed to study the three-dimensional strain field resulting from deformation across the active boundary zone between the Pacific and North American plates in the western United States. The observatory consists of arrays of Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers and strainmeters which will be used to deduce the strain field on timescales of days to decades and geologic and paleoseismic investigations to examine the strain field over longer time scales. More information is available at the PBO home page.

SOPAC archives and analyzes PBO data in support of the NASA REASoN project. Data are provided from UNAVCO using GSAC technology.

As new PBO sites become available, they are automatically added to SOPAC's GPS analysis. Resulting precise coordinates, time series and velocities are available for operational PBO sites from the PBO array information page on the SOPAC website. Time series for all PBO sites are available via the SOPAC time series java applet; in the applet, select "Layer sites->PBO" to display and layer PBO time series.

Time series plots of the official PBO final time series are also available on the REASoN site. Select "PBO official" from the "Select Plot Source" section of the "Plot Controls" popup. Official PBO final time series data can be queried via the coordinate time series query tool.

Map of operational PBO sites

PBO Region Maps:   Alaska   Northern California   Southern California   Rocky Mountains   Basin and Range   Pacific Northwest