Geostatistical determination of recent vertical movements of the Earth’s crust on the territory of the Republic of Srpska

Abstract

The aim of this paper is the geodetic determination of vertical movements of the Earth’s crust using the methods of geostatistics. A practical research is conducted for the territory of the Republic of Srpska and most of Bosnia and Herzegovina. A free kinematic levelling network is constructed based on the data of high accuracy levelling, and vertical velocities of levelling points (benchmarks) are determined by applying the least squares adjustment method. Spatial vertical velocities and their horizontal gradients are evaluated using geostatistical methods. These results are compared with the existing geodetic solutions and other geo-data, and areas with significant values of vertical movements of the Earth’s crust are marked.