Global Positioning System (GPS) measurement campaigns in Myanmar, conducted in 1998 and 2000, allow quantifying the present‐day crustal deformation around the Sagaing fault system in central Myanmar. Both a regional network installed at four points within the country and a local 18‐station network centered on the city of Mandalay across the Sagaing fault demonstrate that active deformation related to the northward motion of India is distributed across Myanmar in a platelet that extends from the western edge of the Shan Plateau in the east to the Andaman Trench in the west. In this platelet, deformation is rather diffuse and distributed over distinct fault systems. In the east, the Sagaing/Shan Scarp fault system absorbs <20 mm/yr of the 35 mm/yr India/Sundaland strike‐slip motion. Along this major plate boundary, strain is partitioned along the N‐S trending Sagaing fault and the transtensile N160°E trending Shan Scarp fault. Shortening and wrenching within the inverted central Myanmar basins, strike‐slip faults affecting the Arakan Yoma fold‐and‐thrust belt, and oblique subduction along the Andaman trench should absorb the remaining India/Sundaland motion (>10 mm/yr). This GPS study combined with an on land geotectonic survey demonstrate that oblique slip of India along the rigid Sundaland block is accommodated by a partitioned system characterized by distribution of deformation over a wide zone.

Results acquired using global positioning system (GPS) data taken over a large part of SE-Asia, indicate that Sundaland, i.e. Indochina along with the western and central part of Indonesia, constitutes a stable tectonic block moving approximately east with respect to Eurasia at a velocity of 12 þ 3 mm yr 31 . With respect to India and Australia this block moves due south. Significant motion has not been detected along the northern boundary to South China i.e. along the Red River Fault, whereas nearly 50 mm yr 31 of right lateral motion has to be accommodated between India and Sundaland in the Andaman^Burma region. ß

The 8th International Comparison of Absolute Gravimeters (ICAG2009) took place at the headquarters of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) from September to October 2009. It was the first ICAG organized as a key comparison in the framework of the CIPM Mutual Recognition Arrangement of the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM MRA) (CIPM 1999). ICAG2009 was composed of a Key Comparison (KC) as defined by the CIPM MRA, organized by the Consultative Committee for Mass and Related Quantities (CCM) and designated as CCM.G-K1. Participating gravimeters and their operators came from national metrology institutes (NMIs) or their designated institutes (DIs) as defined by the CIPM MRA. A Pilot Study (PS) was run in parallel in order to include gravimeters and their operators from other institutes which, while not signatories of the CIPM MRA, nevertheless play important roles in international gravimetry measurements. The aim of the CIPM MRA is to have international acceptance of the measurement capabilities of the participating institutes in various fields of metrology. The results of CCM.G-K1 thus constitute an accurate and consistent gravity reference traceable to the SI (International System of Units), which can be used as the global basis for geodetic, geophysical and metrological observations of gravity. The measurements performed afterwards by the KC participants can be referred to the international metrological reference, i.e. they are SI-traceable. The ICAG2009 was complemented by a number of associated measurements: the Relative Gravity Campaign (RGC2009), high-precision levelling and an accurate gravity survey in support of the BIPM watt balance project. The major measurements took place at the BIPM between July and October 2009. Altogether 24 institutes with 22 absolute gravimeters (one of the 22 AGs was ultimately withdrawn) and nine relative gravimeters participated in the ICAG/RGC campaign. This paper is focused on the absolute gravity campaign. We review the history of the ICAGs and present the organization, data processing and the final results of the ICAG2009. After almost thirty years of hosting eight successive ICAGs, the CIPM decided to transfer the responsibility for piloting the future ICAGs to NMIs, although maintaining a supervisory role through its Consultative Committee for Mass and Related Quantities.

The seasonal seawater mass variation in the Mediterranean Sea is estimated between April 2002 and July 2004 from GRACE and altimetry data and from hydrologic and oceanographic models. A smoothed spatial averaging kernel is applied to each field, in order to obtain comparable basin averages. The GRACE seawater mass corrected for the leakage of continental hydrology and the filtered steric‐corrected altimeter sea level have similar annual amplitude and phase. To restore the magnitude of the GRACE‐derived water mass signal we apply a scaling factor to the smoothed annual amplitude. The estimated scaled mass signal has an annual amplitude of 52 ± 17 mm peaking in November. We combine the seawater mass variation with the Mediterranean freshwater deficit and obtain a net flow at the Strait of Gibraltar with annual amplitude of 60 ± 25 mm/month (0.06 Sv) and maximum in September.

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