A contribution in the estimation of tectonic motion in crucial areas: the CGS96 SLR solution

Abstract The CGS96 is a global SLR solution based on the reduction of the whole available data set for the Lageos I and II satellites, starting from 1986. The accurate modelling adopted and the huge quantity of data of continuously growing quality, lead to reliable estimates of geodetic and orbital parameters. The solution collects a wide variety of parameters, daily earth orientation parameters, coordinates and site velocities of almost 60 sites, plus coordinates for sites with short tracking history, orbital parameters and non-modelled acceleration for both satellites. The core of the paper is the review of the tectonic results and their comparison with the models: the pointers of the goodness of the solution are those results regarding sites centrally located on the major plates, henceforth comparable to model predictions, being a prerequisite for the reliability of the estimates for the crucial sites. The tectonic results are particularly interesting in those areas not suitably described by the global models, such as the Mediterranean, periodically occupied by mobile systems.