A new method for measuring deformation on volcanoes and other natural terrains using InSAR persistent scatterers

We present here a new InSAR persistent scatterer (PS) method for analyzing episodic crustal deformation in non‐urban environments, with application to volcanic settings. Our method for identifying PS pixels in a series of interferograms is based primarily on phase characteristics and finds low‐amplitude pixels with phase stability that are not identified by the existing amplitude‐based algorithm. Our method also uses the spatial correlation of the phases rather than a well‐defined phase history so that we can observe temporally‐variable processes, e.g., volcanic deformation. The algorithm involves removing the residual topographic component of flattened interferogram phase for each PS, then unwrapping the PS…

• NS
  National Science Foundation
• UG
  U.S. Geological Survey