Tectonic, volcanic and human activity: ground deformation signals detected by multitemporal InSAR techniques in the Colima Volcanic Complex rift (Mexico

Abstract

The evolution of volcanoes is strictly related with their substratum and the regional tectonics. The link among morphology, geology and structure of volcanic edifices and the geologicalstructural characteristics of the basement is important to understand hazardous phenomena as flank eruptions and lateral collapses of volcanoes. The Colima Rift is an active regional structure, N-S oriented and more than 100 km long and 10 wide. This rift is filled by a ~1 km-thick sequence of quaternary lacustrine sediments, alluvium, and colluvium, mostly underling the about 3000 m thick volcanic pile of the Colima Volcanic Complex (CVC). In addition to the regional structures curved faults, roughly E-W oriented, are observed on the CVC edifice due to the spreading of the volcano moving southward on the weak basement. So in the CVC edifice and surrounding area we can observe the interaction of regional structures and volcanic ones due to the gravitational loading of the volcanic edifice on the weak substratum of the graben. To measure displacements due to magma movement at depth and interaction of regional structures and volcanic ones, SAR interferometry has proven to be a reliable method; however, andesitic stratovolcanoes like the CVC indeed,remain difficult to survey using this technique. The main causes are their specific geometry (steep topography), which induces strong tropospheric artefacts, environmental conditions (e.g.,mainly vegetation, ash and/or snow cover), leading to a loss of coherency. In this work we try to detect deformations phenomena for the wide CVC using a robust multitemporal InSAR approach Differential Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (DInSAR). We apply the Hooper (2008) DInSAR algorithm (StamPS/MTI) both to ENVISAT ASARr images acquired from 1993 to 2007 and to ALOS PALSAR (datasets from 2006 to 2010) in order to determine the deformation patterns in the CVC.