HORIZONTAL CRUSTAL MOTION IN THE CENTRAL AND EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN INFERRED FROM SATELLITE LASER RANGING MEASUREMENTS

Four campaigns to acquire Satellite Laser Ranging (SLR) measurements a t sites in the Mediterranean region have been completed. These measure ments to the LAGEOS satellite, made largely by mobile systems, cover a time span beginning in November 1985 and ending in June 1993. The ran ge data from 18 sites in the central and eastern Mediterranean have be en simultaneously analyzed with data acquired by the remainder of the global laser tracking network. Estimates of horizontal motion were pla ced into a regional, northern Europe-fixed, kinematic reference frame. Uncertainties are on the order of 5 mm/yr for sites having at least f our occupations by mobile systems and approach 1 mm/yr for permanently located sites with long histories of tracking. The resulting relative motion between sites in the Aegean exhibit characteristics of broadly distributed pattern of radial extension, but at rates that are about 50% larger than those implied from studies of seismic strain rates bas ed on seismicity of magnitude 6 or greater across the region. The moti on estimated for sites in Turkey exhibit velocity components associate d with the westward motion of the Anatolian Block relative to Eurasia. These results provide a present-day ''snapshot'' of ongoing deformati onal processes as experienced by the locations occupied by SLR systems .