Interseismic deformation from Sentinel-1 burst-overlap interferometry:
Application to the southern Dead Sea fault
Abstract
Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) data are increasingly
being used to map interseismic deformation with ascending and
descending-orbit observations allowing for resolving for the near-east
and vertical displacement components. The north component has, however,
been difficult to retrieve due to the limited sensitivity of standard
InSAR observations in that direction. Here we address this problem by
using time-series analysis of along-track interferometric observations
in burst-overlap areas of the TOPS imaging mode of the Sentinel-1 radar
satellites. We apply this method to the southern part of the near-north
striking Dead Sea transform fault to show that the ~5
mm/year relative motion is well recovered. Furthermore, the results
indicate the locking depth of the fault decreases towards the south as
it enters the transtensional Gulf of Aqaba basin. Our results show that
time-series analysis of burst-overlap interferometric observations can
be used to obtain meaningful interseismic deformation rates of
slow-moving and northerly-striking faults.