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"A breakthrough in our capabilities to learn about earthquakes"… Interview with Yuri Fialko
 
23 January 2006

Prof. Yuri Fialko
Yuri Fialko, Associate Professor at the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego
 
 
Interferometry
Multiple radar satellite images of the same site can be combined to access an additional dimension of information about it, a technique called Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (InSAR). Topography information acquired through InSAR can create Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) and also serve as a means of charting very slight surface deformation occurring between acquisitions. This diagram shows how a pair of images from twin ERS satellites were used to create a DEM of the Etna volcano in Sicily, Italy. Pairs of images acquired from the same spacecraft during different orbits can also be used for InSAR.

Credits: ESA
 
 
An Alaska Department of Transportation truck sits at the edge of one of the large cracks on the Tok Cutoff Highway, near Mentasta, Alaska, Monday, Nov. 4, 2002, caused by an 7.9 magnitude earthquake on Sunday that rocked a sparsely populated area of interior Alaska. Bruce Turner of the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center in Palmer, Alaska, said the quake hit at 1:13 p.m Alaska Standard Time and was centered 90 miles south of Fairbanks.

Credits: AP Photo/Alaska Department of Transportation
 
 
Nature
The picture shows the cover page of Nature, Vol 364, 8 July 1993 Issue no. 6433. It shows the surface displacement associated with the June 1992 magnitude 7.3 earthquake in Landers, seen by interferometric processing of two images from the ERS-1 satellite. One full colour cycle in the interferometric fringes represent a change of 28 mm in the ground-to-satellite range between pre- and post-earthquake images. Solid lines show the surface rupture as mapped in the field. The image comes from a paper called 'The displacement field of the Landers earthquake mapped by radar interferometry' with authors Didier Massonnet, Marc Rossi, Cesar Carmona, Frederic Adragna (CNES), Gilles Pletzner (Observatoire Midi-Pyrenees) and Kurt Feigl (Scot Conseil) and published on pages 138 - 142.

Credits: Nature
 
 
Landers
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 HI-RES JPG (Size: 388 kb)  HI-RES TIFF (Size: 1317 kb)
Post-seismic deformation following the 1992 Landers earthquake measured by stacking of several tens of radar interferograms from ERS-1 and 2 data.

Credits: Prof. Yuri Fialko/UCSD
 
 
Bam
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 HI-RES JPG (Size: 150 kb)
Slip model of the 2003 Bam earthquake derived from the Envisat ASAR data. The radar correlation is draped on top of the surface topography (viewed from below).

Credits: Prof. Yuri Fialko/UCSD
 
 
Hector Mine
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 HI-RES JPG (Size: 4242 kb)
Color topography map of California, inset shows small-scale deformation on fault zones around the 1999 Hector Mine rupture

Credits: Prof. Yuri Fialko/UCSD
 
 
Hector Mine
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 HI-RES JPG (Size: 941 kb)  HI-RES TIFF (Size: 2749 kb)
Perspective view of deformation on faults adjacent to the Hector Mine earthquake rupture

Credits: Prof. Yuri Fialko/UCSD
 
 
3-D displacement field
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 HI-RES JPG (Size: 983 kb)  HI-RES TIFF (Size: 7260 kb)
3-D vector displacement field from the Hector Mine earthquake derived from the ERS SAR data.

Credits: Prof. Yuri Fialko/UCSD
 
 
Download:
 HI-RES JPG (Size: 876 kb)
ESA's ten-instrument Envisat environmental satellite has been observing the Earth for more than three years. Picture by EADS Astrium.

Credits: EADS Astrium
 
 
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In depth
EO Principal Investigator PortalProf. Yuri Fialko on EOPI
Related links
Prof. Yuri Fialko homepageInstitute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP) at Scripps Institution, UCSDWInSAR
 
 
 
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