Abstract
SummaryStudies of interseismic strain accumulation are crucial to our understanding of continental deformation, the earthquake cycle and seismic hazard. By mapping small amounts of ground deformation over large spatial areas, InSAR has the potential to produce continental-scale maps of strain accumulation on active faults. However, most InSAR studies to date have focused on areas where the coherence is relatively good (e.g. California, Tibet and Turkey) and most analysis techniques (stacking, small baseline subset algorithm, permanent scatterers, etc.) only include information from pixels which are coherent throughout the time-span of the study. In some areas, such as Alaska, where the deformation rate is small and coherence very variable, it is necessary to include information from pixels which are coherent in some but not all interferograms. We use a three-stage iterative algorithm based on distributed scatterer interferometry. We validate our method using synthetic data created using realistic parameters from a test site on the Denali Fault, Alaska, and present a preliminary result of 10.5 ± 5.0 mm yr−1 for the slip rate on the Denali Fault based on a single track of radar data from ERS1/2.
Highlights
Previous studies have clearly demonstrated the potential of InSAR to detect and measure slow tectonic signals such as interseismic strain accumulation in places with good interferometric conditions (e.g. Wright et al 2001)
Los Deformation Rate in Forward Model locking depth, we model the rate of ground deformation expected for a nominal slip rate (1 mm yr−1)
We have presented a new method for finding the interseismic slip rate on a fault under difficult interferometric conditions
Summary
Previous studies have clearly demonstrated the potential of InSAR to detect and measure slow tectonic signals such as interseismic strain accumulation in places with good interferometric conditions (e.g. Wright et al 2001). In the long term, InSAR may have the potential to produce continental scale fault maps which identify all active structures and measure the rate of strain accumulation across them. Such a map would be a crucial tool for hazard assessment and provide a valuable data set to advance our understanding of the mechanics of continental deformation. The Denali Fault, Alaska, has an intermediate slip rate, difficult interferometric conditions, but a large archive of available data. These are conditions which we might expect if attempting to
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