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T.D. Gilmore

Publications and source records attributed to T.D. Gilmore.

7 recordsLinked to original sources
USGS2012

An examination of the southern California field test for the systematic accumulation of the optical refraction error in geodetic leveling

Appraisals of the two levelings that formed the southern California field test for the accumulation of the atmospheric refraction error indicate that random error and systematic error unrelated to refraction competed with the systematic refraction error and severely complicate any analysis of the test results. If the fewer than one-third of the sections that met less than second-order, class I standards are dropped, the divergence virtually disappears between the presumably more refraction contaminated long-sight-length survey and the less contaminated short-sight-length survey.

Geophysical Research Letters↗
USGS2012

Empirical estimates of cumulative refraction errors associated with procedurally constrained levelings based on the Gaithersburg- Tucson refraction tests of the National Geodetic Survey

Analyses of results of the National Geodetic Survey's leveling refraction tests indicate that the standard deviation about the mean (σ) for high-scale minus low-scale rod readings closely correlates with measured refraction error. Use of this relation in conjunction with values for σ obtained from routinely constrained surveys provides a basis for estimating the refraction error associated with levelings of stipulated order and class.

Geophysical Research Letters↗
USGS2012

An assessment of the accuracy of the geodetic measurements that define the southern California uplift

Examination of the charge that the geodetic measurements which define the southern California uplift are seriously flawed by height-dependent systematic errors indicates that this charge is unfounded. Our review of those factors designed to minimize the effects of rod error shows that systematic errors attributable to rod miscalibration are trivial and would tend to cancel during the particularly pertinent period 1955–1965. Comparisons between the results of measurements in which the correlation between topography and signal is generally poor reveal large aseismic tilts in a number of places within and around the margins of the uplift. Especially significant in this context are the results of preuplift and postuplift levelings over routes characterized by diverse length, topography, and atmospheric conditions that produce closely matching, temporally equivalent heights for a representative bench mark within the uplift. Statistical analyses of the short-wavelength components of uplift signal and elevation along a frequently repeated survey line indicate variable correlations between the two. However, the spatial and temporal patterns of these correlations are inconsistent with their attribution to height-dependent systematic errors. Statistically significant short-wavelength correlations along this survey line are reasonably explained in part as due to real movement associated with differentially subsiding bench marks, and there is a strong likelihood that this movement tends to dominate many of the correlations.

Journal of Geophysical Research Solid Earth↗
USGS1992

A revised configuration of the southern California uplift

Recently recovered archival leveling data from southwestern Arizona and adjacent parts of California compel major revisions in the configuration and interpretation of the southern California uplift, both at its culmination and following its partial collapse. Re-examination of the older vertical-control record indicates that similar modifications may be equally appropriate in any reconsideration of the early-20th-century analogue of the southern California uplift. The impact of these revisions is limited to the southeastern part of the uplift, which is now believed to have projected well into northern Mexico. The chief changes in our earlier reconstructions appear as a sharply diminished isobase gradient south of Cottonwood Pass, dramatically reduced tectonic subsidence centering on the Salton Sea, and short-lived uplift of at least 0.3 m at the latitude of El Centro. A newly refined qualitative interpretation of the data implies contraction and decoupling at the base of the seismogenic zone, in conjunction with right-stepping movement and extension between an en echelon transform pair through the Salton Basin, combining to produce both the regional uplift and concurrently developed and relatively localized differential subsidence within the Salton Trough.

California↗