Feeling a bit off?
Well, if you live in Australia, then don’t worry, you might be about 1.5 metres “off”.
A team from GEOSCIENCE Australia are about to recalculate the nation’s latitude and longitude coordinates, which are currently out by more than 1.5 metres.
Australia sits on the fastest moving continental tectonic plate in the world, thus coordinates measured in the past continue changing over time.
The continent is moving north by about 7 centimetres each year, colliding with the Pacific Plate, which is moving west about 11 centimetres each year.
It will improve the accuracy of all spatial information across the nation for a myriad of services including transportation, personal navigation and surveying.
GNSS stations consist of permanent geodetic quality GPS receivers, on geologically stable marks, with eight stations within Australia known as the Australian Fiducial Network (AFN) . These stations provide the geodetic framework for the spatial data infrastructure in Australia and its territories. They also provide input for the measurement of earth processes, such as crustal dynamics and sea level rise.
