Coseismic surface deformation of the 2014 Napa earthquake mapped by Sentinel-1A SAR and accuracy assessment with COSMO-SkyMed and GPS data as cross validation

The new land observation satellite Sentinel-1A was launched on 25 April 2014 with a C-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensor, which has the significant enhancements in terms of revisit period and high resolution. The Mw 6.1 Napa, California earthquake occurring on 24 August 2014, almost 4 months after the launch, is the first moderate earthquake imaged by the Sentinel-1A. This provides an opportunity to map the coseismic deformation of the event and evaluate the potential of Sentinel-1A SAR for earthquake study. Two techniques including the interferometric SAR (InSAR) and pixel offset-tracking (PO) are, respectively, employed to map the surface deformation along the radar line of sight (LOS), azimuth and slant-range directions. The cross comparison between Sentinel-1A InSAR LOS deformation and GPS observations indicates good agreement with an accuracy of ∼2.6 mm. We further estimate the earthquake source model with the external COSMO-SkyMed InSAR and GPS data as constraints, and forward calculate the surface deformation as cross validation with the Sentinel-1A observations. The comparison between the observed and modeled deformation shows that the Sentinel-1A measurement accuracy can achieve 1.6 cm for InSAR technique along LOS direction, and 6.3 and 6.7 cm for PO along azimuth and range directions, respectively

Measuring Coseismic Deformation With Spaceborne Synthetic Aperture Radar: A Review

In the past 25 years, space-borne Synthetic Aperture Radar imagery has become an increasingly available data source for the study of crustal deformation associated with moderate to large earthquakes (M > 4.0). Coseismic surface deformation can be measured with several well-established techniques, the applicability of which depends on the ground displacement pattern, on several radar parameters, and on the surface properties at the time of the radar acquisitions. The state-of-the-art concerning the measurement techniques is reviewed, and their application to over 100 case-studies since the launch of the Sentinel-1a satellite is discussed, including the performance of the different methods and the data processing aspects, which still constitute topics of ongoing research