A paper published February 9 in Earth, Planets and Space by Japanese earth science researchers analyzed the potential of a dense Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) network, which is installed at cell phone base stations, to monitor crustal deformation as an early warning indicator of seismic activity. The results showed that data from a cell phone network can rival the precision of data from a government-run GNSS network, while providing more complete geographic coverage.
Crustal deformation is monitored around plate boundaries, active faults, and volcano