SBAS-DInSAR analysis of January 2020 eruption of La cumbre Volcano, Galapagos Archipelago

Abstract

The Galapagos Archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, situated 1000 km from the Ecuadorian coast, has been considered one of the UNESCO World Heritage sites. Its geographical location, ongoing seismo_volcanic activities, and the island's extreme isolation have led to the development of a wide variety of unique plant and animal species, which inspired Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. La cumbre volcano is one of the most active volcanoes in the Galapagos archipelago and is situated closest to the mantle plume. Eruptions are frequent here, with a record of 30 eruptions since 1800. Recently La Cumbre volcano erupted on 2020 January 12, with 11 seismic tremors recorded on that day with a maximum magnitude of 4.7. The Small Baseline Subset (SBAS) is an advanced Differential Interferometric SAR technique used to generate the deformation time series from the sequence of SAR datasets with a reduced spatiotemporal decorrelation. It is one of the best approaches for monitoring and analyzing surface deformations from space with a millimeter level of accuracy. In this paper, we analyze the January 2020 eruption of the La cumbre volcano using the SBAS technique. 9 Sentinel-1C band SAR data granules from 2019 November 17 to 2020 February 21 were used to generate the deformation time series map for estimating the degree of deformation at the volcanic edifice. As per the analysis, it is evident that the recent eruption has caused a displacement of up to −38 cm at the South Eastern flank of the crater, which has increased initially and then decreased on approaching the steady-state of eruption.