High‐rate Global Positioning Systems (GPS) observations can record ground motions from moderate to strong earthquakes at distances of a few kilometers up to thousands of kilometers (Larson et al., 2003; Bock et al., 2004; Ohta et al., 2006; Wang et al., 2007; Davis and Smalley, 2009; Delouis et al., 2010; Shi et al., 2010; Yue and Lay, 2011). These observations detect strong signals such as S wave and surface waves (Kouba, 2003; Larson et al., 2003; Irwan et al., 2004; Ohta et al., 2006; Wang et al., 2007; Davis and Smalley, 2009; Shi et al., 2010), as well as relatively weaker seismic phases such as P waves (Avallone et al., 2011). Seismic phases arriving later than surface waves have been rarely reported. Although it has been confirmed that arbitrarily large seismic signals are recorded with high‐rate GPS (Bock et al., 2004), we assess here the lower limit of signals from earthquakes that can be recovered from high‐rate GPS records.

Benefits of exploiting high‐rate GPS in earthquake source studies include the ability to detect arbitrarily large dynamic ground motions that do not clip in the presence of strong ground motion and accurate recording of ground displacements without needing to doubly integrate acceleration records of strong‐motion seismometers (Graizer, 2010). As a result, high‐rate GPS records are now routinely used in studies of earthquake source parameters and rupture process independently of, or jointly with, seismological observations (Miyazaki et al., 2003; Ji et al., 2004; Bilich et al., 2008; Yokota et al., 2009; Avallone et al., 2011; Yue and Lay, 2011; Bock et al., 2011; Crowell …