Journal article
InSAR and Optical Constraints on Fault Slip during the 2010-2011 New Zealand Earthquake Sequence
Seismological research letters, Vol.82(6), pp.815-823
11/01/2011
DOI: 10.1785/gssrl.82.6.815
Abstract
Our study used space-based interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) and feature tracking on sub-meter-resolution optical imagery pairs to characterize surface deformation resulting from the 4 September 2010 Mw 7.1 Darfield, 22 February 2011 Mw 6.3 Christchurch, and 13 June 2011 Christchurch earthquakes (dates in local time), each of which occurred in the Canterbury region of the South Island of New Zealand. A rapid, coordinated international emergency response is often required when strong-motion earthquakes hit urban areas. Unfortunately in these cases relief workers often have little information about the location or the extent of damage. Remote sensing can rapidly provide maps of certain key variables ( i.e. , building damage, potential loading of nearby faults, etc.) to relief workers on the ground. These maps can cover broad areas on time scales that are only limited by the revisit time of the satellite or aircraft. Critically, imagery types such as satellite-based synthetic aperture radar (SAR) have long repeat times of up to 46 days at present, although the existence of overlapping tracks and multiple satellite platforms effectively reduces the repeat time somewhat. Here we demonstrate the impact of commercial optical imagery that can be acquired within hours to days after an earthquake, with the goal of supporting relief efforts in future earthquakes on a more rapid timescale than can be achieved with SAR imagery alone. We demonstrate that these sub-meter-resolution scenes are feasible tools for deriving near-fault surface displacements for use in fault slip inversions, even in areas of heavy agricultural activity. The Darfield and Christchurch earthquakes present an opportunity to observe postseismic deformation related to multiple moderate (< Mw 7.5) earthquakes occurring in close spatial and temporal proximity with an unprecedented set of seismic and geodetic constraints spanning the two events. While there are many examples of earthquakes of this size occurring …
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- InSAR and Optical Constraints on Fault Slip during the 2010-2011 New Zealand Earthquake Sequence
- Creators
- William D BarnhartMichael J WillisRowena B LohmanAndrew K Melkonian
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Seismological research letters, Vol.82(6), pp.815-823
- DOI
- 10.1785/gssrl.82.6.815
- ISSN
- 0895-0695
- eISSN
- 1938-2057
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 11/01/2011
- Academic Unit
- Earth and Environmental Sciences
- Record Identifier
- 9983984526602771
Metrics
20 Record Views