Measuring the north-south coseismic displacement component with high-resolution multi aperture InSAR

Abstract

Earthquake source inversions based on space-borne Synthetic Aperture Radar interferometry (InSAR) are used extensively. Typically, however, only the line-of-sight (LoS) surface displacement component is measured, which is mainly sensitive to the vertical and E–W deformations, although well-established methods also exist to estimate the flight-path component, which is highly sensitive to the N–S displacement. With high-resolution sensors, these techniques are particularly appealing, because accuracies in the order of 3 cm can be achieved, while retaining spatial resolutions between 45 m and a few km, depending on the required level of filtering. We discuss the application to COSMO-SkyMed SAR imagery of the Spectral Diversity or Multi Aperture Interferometry technique, presenting the first SAR flight-path displacement field associated with the Mw 6.3, 2009 L’Aquila event (central Apennines). Finally, we observe and characterize a previously unknown misregistration pattern.