Joint analysis of displacement time series retrieved from SAR phase and amplitude: Impact on the estimation of volcanic source parameters

Abstract

We study the impact of jointly analyzing the phase and amplitude information of a SAR dataset on the interpretation of the surface displacement over time in areas characterized by large dynamics. In particular, we compute the ground displacement time series over Fernandina and Sierra Negra calderas (Galápagos islands), by applying the Small BAseline Subset (SBAS) and the Pixel Offset (PO)-SBAS techniques to 25 ENVISAT SAR images acquired between 2003 and 2007, when both volcanoes experienced catastrophic eruptions. By merging the SBAS and PO-SBAS time series results the spatial density of measurements increased substantially. In addition, the joint analysis of the time series allows us to better constrain the temporal evolution of the magmatic source volume changes. Our results show that the joint use of the SBAS and PO-SBAS approaches may help for a more correct evaluation of large deformation affecting the Earth's surface caused by eruptions, earthquakes, and landslide phenomena. © 2012. American Geophysical Union.