Proceedings of the 128th Symposium of the International Astronomical Union, held in Coolfont, West Virginia, USA, October 20-24, 1986.

Over the past ten years, since the MERIT project began in 1980, great changes have taken place and significant advances made in the area of Earth Rotation and Coordinate Reference Frames. Symposium 105, held at the 125th Anniversary Meeting of the International Association of Geodesy, August 1989, was devoted to this subject. Major improvements in techniques, such as VLBI and laser ranging, have been accompanied by corresponding improvements in data-processing procedures and theories of relevant phenomena. The papers included in this volume provide both a comprehensive record of past discoveries and a sound basis for further advances. Section headings are as follows: - Earth Rotation: Determination and Prediction - Earth Rotation: Interpretation - Reference Frames

This book on reference systems is the first comprehensive review of the problem of celestial and terrestrial reference systems and frames. Over 20 years, the importance of this problem emerged slowly as the accuracy of new observational techniques improved. The topic has already been approached in several symposia such as Stresa (1967), Morioka (1971), Perth (1973), Columbus (1975, 1978 and 1985), Kiev (1977) and San Fernando (1978). Two IAU colloquia held in Turin (1974) and in Warsaw (1980) were exclusively devoted to discuss reference systems. During this time, the problem of terrestrial and celestial reference systems has been discussed also in many astronomical and geodetic symposia, but always among other topics. Thus, a review devoted solely to the definition and practical realization of such systems was needed. It is hoped that this book, containing modern comprehensive reviews of important facets of this problem will contribute not only to a better and wider understanding of the mathematics and the physics that are behind the concepts and the realizations, but also to future development in a field that can only expand with the rapidly increasing accuracy of geodetic and astronomical observations. We are pleased to thank all the authors of the book who have enthusiastically agreed to contribute to the book in their field of competence and have gracefully accepted guidance from the editors in the definition of the subject and of the interfaces with other chapters. We thank Prof. Y.

Proceedings of the 56th Colloquium of the International Astronomical Union held in Warsaw, Poland, September 8-12, 1980

Based on the IAG scientific assembly in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, this volume combines papers in the fields of gravity and geoid, geodynamics, and geodesy in Antarctica. The volume contains papers on recent progress in absolute and relative gravimetry, on models of the global gravity field, theoretical developments in physical geodesy, and many examples of regional gravity field and geoid models. Geodynamics chapters include papers on earth rotation and geopotential variations, reference frames and global deformations, as well as a section on the combination of space and terrestrial methods for deformation observations. The current status of geodesy in Antarctica is illustrated by a number of papers.