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New Fringes: Earthquake Monitoring in Vegetated Regions With NISAR

Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) data have been critical for advances in earthquake science by providing high-resolution surface deformation measurements throughout the earthquake cycle over many regions of the world. However, in vegetated regions, the current generation of C-band InSAR measurements decorrelate, therefore cannot be used, so earthquake studies are limited to ground measurements (e.g., GPS, seismometers, strainmeters, etc.). NASA-ISRO’s new NISAR mission uses an L-band radar, whose longer wavelength better penetrates through vegetation and maintains coherence in densely vegetated regions. This new dataset will provide high-resolution SAR images every 12 days globally. Additionally, in combination with other satellites, multiple viewing geometries of fault systems will enable more accurate derivation of 3-D displacement measurements (east, north, and vertical), which can be used to constrain fault slip solutions.

One new potential monitoring region is the Cascadia Subduction Zone, where InSAR monitoring of long-term tectonic and transient events has been challenging due to the dense vegetation that covers the region. We use all the available L-band NISAR and present some of the first NISAR images and surface deformation time series of the region. We perform a coherence analysis of the NISAR images and compare with the other available satellite data (e.g., ALOS-2 and Sentinel-1). We further compute phase statistics to determine the impact of residual noise on future derived time series. We demonstrate the potential for long-term monitoring using NISAR in the region and that more deformation measurements over time will improve our current understanding of the earthquake cycle and preparedness for hazards in the region.

Session: New Possibilities for InSAR in Earthquake Science: the NISAR Mission and OPERA Displacement Maps - I

Type: Oral

Room: Ballroom H

Date: 4/15/2026

Presentation Time: 08:15 AM (local time)

Presenting Author: Molly Zebker

Student Presenter: No

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