Three-dimensional strain descriptors at the Earth’s surface through 3D retrieved co-event displacement fields of differential interferometric synthetic aperture radar

Abstract

In deformation analysis, invariant strain descriptors that are independent of the coordinate system are significant. An approach is proposed to determine the strain tensor and invariant strain quantities through the 3D retrieved co-event displacement of differential interferometric synthetic aperture radar (DInSAR). An optimal cell count is selected based on the proposed rule-of-thumb formula. This set of coherent cells with prescribed acceptable minimum value coherence is distributed on the domain through a quasi-random number generator. The recursive moving least squares method is applied to estimate the components of strain and differential rotation tensors. In practice, this method is not limited to the homogeneous strain field hypothesis. The objective here is to propose an approach to determine the local and regional strain patterns in SAR’s image resolution details. This approach is tested on both synthetic and real data. The real data consist of 3D displacements of 19 global navigation satellite system stations and SAR images of Kilauea Volcano eruption in July 2007. Results indicate that the areas with maximum shear strain and maximum dilatation are located exactly near the east rift zone of the volcano.