With the recent development of geodetic observation theory, the increasing satellite platforms and the progress of related technology, InSAR is emerging as a new data source and useful tool for remotely-based geodetic observations. More importantly, InSAR observations play an increasingly irreplaceable role in the field of coseismic deformation observations, earthquake emergency responses, earthquake hazard evaluation and seismogenic structure research. Particularly, InSAR is the most commonly used tool in coseismic deformation measurements on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau or other global seismic zones, where GPS data are sparse or inaccessible in some cases. Specifically, InSAR measurements help us to respond in time after disastrous earthquakes and provide valuable information associated with how the surface of the crust deforms due to large earthquakes. In the area of scientific research, InSAR provides products of surface deformation observations and serves as model constraints kinematically or dynamically in identifying the buried faults, studying the characteristics of seismogenic faults, obtaining three-dimensional displacements, and investigating the relationship between earthquakes and tectonic structures. InSAR observations and its deformation products have the technical advantages of large spatial scale, high precision and in-time, compared to other geodetic measurements. Consequently, InSAR has the ability to provide scientific and technological support for earthquake emergency observations, and meeting the practical needs of earthquake disaster reduction on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau.

In this review, we mostly limit our focus to the application of InSAR technology in earthquake cycle deformation monitoring in different structural settings on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau. We also summarize the InSAR-based studies on fault kinematics and seismogenic structures related to some noted earthquakes on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau. We highlight how the applications of InSAR data can greatly promote earthquake science and can be used as routine observations in some important areas. Then proceed to discuss the cutting-edge development trend and some new challenges of InSAR technology, which are frequently discussed and investigated, but not well resolved, in recent applications. The endeavors in increasing the precision of small-magnitude deformation measurements and expanding the InSAR data volumes can make the scientific objectives of earthquake disaster reduction on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau and its surrounding areas feasible and reliable. To better understand how InSAR observations have changed the way we study earthquakes, we summarize the development, commercialization, insights, and existing challenges associated with InSAR coseismic deformation measurements and application in recent two decades.

Due to the ongoing collision between Indian and Eurasian plates, the internal blocks of the Tibet plateau are experiencing eastward extrusion. Resulting from the blocking of the Sichuan Basin along the eastern boundary of the Bayanhar block, the plateau begins to rotate clockwise around the eastern syntaxis, and continues to move toward the IndoChina Peninsula. Such process forms the Hengduan Mountains with thousands of gullies in the Sichuan-Yunnan region, and generates major earthquakes across the entire Red River Fault, where infrastructures and residents are seriously threatened by the frequent earthquakes. InSAR observations feature a high spatial resolution and short intervals, ranging from several days to over a month, depending on the satellite revisit period.
On May 21, 2021, an earthquake struck the Yangbi city. This event provides a rare opportunity to look at the local tectonic and seismic risk in the north of the Red River Fault. We processed the Sentinel-1 SAR data with D-InSAR technology and generated the surface deformation caused by the Yangbi M_S6.4 earthquake occurring on May 21, 2021. Due to the abundant vegetation and moisture in Yunnan, significant atmospheric noise needs to be corrected for the derived InSAR displacement field. The results show a maximum deformation of~0.07m in line-of-sight for ascending track and~0.08m for descending track. The quality of interferogram on the ascending track is low, and only one of the quadrans can be distinguished, the rest of the interferogram is regarded as phase noise. However, the descending interferogram contains two deformation regions, with its long axis roughly along the NW-SE direction. The northeast part of interferogram moves towards the satellite, while the southwest part moves away from the satellite. The InSAR interferograms pattern shows a right-lateral strike-slip movement. Then, we combined coseismic displacement data obtained from the Global Navigation Satellite System(GNSS)and InSAR(both the ascending and descending)to invert the coseismic slip model of the Yangbi earthquake. The inversion test shows that our data cannot give strong constraints for the dip orientations, and the two slip models with opposite dip orientation can explain the observations within the noise level. No matter what the dip orientation is, the slip models show that the coseismic slip concentrated at depth of 2~10km, with a maximum slip of~0.8m, which corresponds to a moment magnitude of M_S6.4, and is consistent with body-wave-based focal mechanism. But the relocated aftershocks in 3 hours immediately after the mainshock reveal a SW-dipping fault plane 10km away to the west of Weixi-Qiaohou-Weishan Fault, we therefore conclude that the Yangbi earthquake ruptured a SW-dipping dextral fault, which is previously unknown. To analyze the effects of the Yangbi earthquake on the seismic risk of the regional dextral faults, we estimated the Coulomb stress change caused by our preferred slip model. The Coulomb stress at 7.5km depth is negative, indicating stress unloading, while the Coulomb stress at 15km depth is positive, indicating slightly loading, but still less than the empirical triggering threshold. The results indicate that Yangbi earthquake partially relieved the strain accumulated on the nearby faults, thus restraining the seismic risk of these faults.

In the global scale, ten destructive earthquakes with magnitude larger than 7 happen on average each year. Yet the number of small earthquakes with limited or even no damage but recordable by seismographs(magnitude between 2.5 and 4.5)is over one million per year. In between, there are hundreds to thousands of earthquakes with moderate to strong magnitude(magnitude between 5.5 and 6.5)with notable destructiveness. The massive moderate to strong earthquakes are often less noticed or even overlooked, with only very few exceptions which caused human casualties and/or structure damages due to the very shallow focal depths. For medium earthquakes, the traditional seismology means can obtain the source mechanism solution of earthquake, but because of the inherent fuzziness of the source mechanism, it cannot distinguish the fault plane from the auxiliary nodal planes, because earthquakes of this magnitude usually do not produce surface rupture, and the result error is large, so it is not suitable for the study of medium and small earthquakes. It is of fundamental significance to further study the source fault of the moderate earthquakes, and more independent methods other than traditional seismology, such as satellite geodesy are needed. As one of the most applied satellite geodesy technique, interferometry of SAR(InSAR)satellite images are commonly used to obtain coseismic deformation related to earthquakes. InSAR has very high spatial sampling, though the temporal sampling is very low, which is several days to over a month depending on the satellite revisit span. The precision of coseismic deformation by InSAR can reach 2~3cm, which is good enough to obtain the surface deformation caused by a moderate earthquake. It is noted that InSAR coseismic measurements can detect 1-dimensional(1D)deformation along Line-of-Sight(LOS)direction. With multiple observing modes including descending and ascending, the InSAR deformation data is very useful for identifying surface ruptures, and for source fault plane discrimination. As a new geodetic observation technology, InSAR uses the elastic dislocation model to obtain source parameters, and the inversion results of fault parameters and slip distribution are more reliable. On September 24th, 2019, an M_W6.0 earthquake hit New Mirpur, Pakistan. The nearest known fault to the epicenter is the Main Frontal Thrust on its south side. We used the Sentinel-1A SAR imagery(TOPS-model)to reconstruct the InSAR coseismic deformation fields generated by the 2019 M_W6.0 Pakistan earthquake along the ascending and descending tracks. The ascending and descending deformation fields indicate that coseismic deformation is asymmetric by a trend of NW-SE in the south secondary fault of the Himalayan frontal thrust fault, with a maximum LOS displacement of~0.1m. The structures of ascending and descending deformation are highly consistent with each other, but the LOS displacement of southern side is obviously larger than the northern side. The continuous change of interference fringes between uplift and subsidence areas shows that there is no coherent phenomenon caused by excessively large deformation gradient or surface rupture, which indicates that the seismic fault rupture did not reach to the ground surface. Two initial fault models constrained by InSAR deformation, with a southwest-dipping and northeast-dipping fault, were utilized in the inversion. We finally determined the northeast-dipping fault as the seismogenic fault by joint inversion of ascending and descending observations, combined with tectonic setting. Our fault model suggests that an obvious slip concentrated area is located in the depth of 2~4km, with a peak slip of~0.64m and a mean rake angle of~125°. The north-dipping thrust motion with a small amount of strike-slip component dominated the faulting. The earthquake occurred in the low-dipping subduction zone between the Indian and Eurasian plates. The dip angle of the fault plane is relatively low. When the fault is ruptured, the upper wall thrust southwards and the north wall subducted northwards. Due to the compressional nappe structure, the front end of the upper wall was uplifted and the back end was stretched to become the subsidence area. Seismogenic fault is the south secondary fault of the Himalayan frontal thrust fault inferred from our coseismic fault model and rupture kinematic features. Active faults on the land have caused many large destructive earthquakes, resulting in surface faults and promoting the development of tectonic landforms. The detailed observation of coseismic surface rupture not only provides basic information for understanding the earthquake itself and estimating the earthquake recurrence period, but also helps to interpret the tectonic and geomorphic features in other areas. Since the M_W6.0 earthquake in Pakistan in 2019, no studies have been reported yet on this earthquake using InSAR technology, so the study of this earthquake provides a rare opportunity to assess the seismic risk of active thrust faults and to study the seismicity of northern Pakistan.

The continuous collision between Tian Shan and Tarim Basin causes not only the uplift of mountains, but also the earthquakes across the entire Tian Shan, particularly in the transient zone from mountains to the adjacent basins, where the critical infrastructures and residents are seriously under threat from these earthquake hazards. On 19^th January, 2020, an earthquake occurred in the Kalpintage fold thrust belt in the southwest Tian Shan foreland. We call this event the 2020 M_W6.0 Kalpintage earthquake, which is the first moderate earthquake captured by modern geodetic measurement techniques. This event therefore provides a rare opportunity to look into the local tectonics and seismic risk in southwest Tian Shan. In this study, we obtained the coseismic deformation of 2020 M_W6.0 Kalpintage earthquake from Sentinel-1A SAR and strong motion data, and then inverted its kinematic slip model. We derived the InSAR interferograms from both ascending and descending tracks. Both of them present similar deformation patterns, two deformation peaks over the Kalpintage anticline. That means: 1)The surface deformation is dominated by vertical displacement, and 2)the coseismic rupture plane is highly suspected to be the shallowly dipping decollement at the base of the sediment cover. We got the 3-D displacements of 6 strong motion stations by double integrating the strong motion acceleration signals. The result shows tiny displacement on the strong motion stations, except for the Xikeer station, which locates at the front of the Kalpintage anticline, where the InSAR interferograms are seriously incoherent. Two slip models can equally fit to the ascending and descending InSAR interferograms: One is a strike slip model with strike of N-S, the other is a thrust model with strike of E-W. This ambiguity in the slip models for the M_W6.0 Kalpintage earthquake is caused by 1)the extremely small dip angles of the causative fault, 2)the inherent shortcomings of the InSAR measurements i.e. the 1-D measurements along the line of sight, the polar orbiting direction of the SAR satellite, and 3)the serious atmospheric delay due to contrasting topography in southwest Tian Shan. We did not distinguish the two ambiguous models with InSAR data due to the weak constraints of InSAR for this event. However, the two quite different slip models show the same spatial dimension and position beneath the Kalpintage anticline, also the same seismic slip vector moving toward the Tarim Basin. We then presumed the two slip models refer to the same fault plane, the weak decollement at the base of the sediment cover, and its rupture released the compressive strain in this fold and thrust belt in the southwest Tian Shan front. The confusing problem is neither the strike slip model nor the thrust model can explain the displacement derived from strong motion. The simple error estimates show small uncertainty in the strong-motion-derived displacement, but we cannot really know the real errors without the comparison to the collocated continuous GNSS observation. Because of the discrepancy between the strong motion displacement and InSAR-derived slip model, we speculate the inelastic deformation occurred in front of the Kalpintage anticline where thick weak sediments exist. We think this earthquake ruptured the decollements in the lower sediments bounded by the adjacent anticlines, which are uplifted in this event. The M_W6.0 Kalpintage earthquake balanced the stress accommodated during the convergence of the Tian Shan and Tarim Basin. We managed to explain all of the ruptures in the southwest Tian Shan by combining the regional tectonic, geophysical data and the available earthquake catalogues with good quality and then estimated the earthquake hazards. The earthquakes, including 1902 M_W7.7 karshigar, 1996 M_W6.3 Jiashi, 1997—2003 Jiashi sequence and 2020 M_W6.0 Kalpintage earthquake, can be explained in one frame, the underthrusting of the Tarim Basin toward the southwest Tian Shan. Our calculation suggests that a M_W7.0+ event could be generated around Kalpintage anticline belt if without barriers on the decollements.

It has been reported that there is thermal anomaly within a certain time and space preceding an earthquake, and previous research has indicated potential associations between the thermal anomaly and earthquake faults, but it is still controversial whether physical processes associated with seismic faults can produce observable heat.Based on rock experiments, some scholars believe that the convective and stress-induced heat associated with fault stress changes may be the cause of those anomalies. Then, did the thermal anomaly before the Wenchuan earthquake induced by the fault stress change?It remains to be tested by numerical simulations on the distribution and intensity of thermal anomalies. For example, is the area of thermal anomaly caused by the fault stress changes before the earthquake the same as the observation?Is the intensity the same?To clarify the above questions, a two-dimensional thermo-hydro-mechanical(THM)finite element model was conducted in this study to simulate the spatial and temporal variations of thermal anomalies caused by the underground fluid convection and rock stress change due to the tectonic stress release on fault before earthquake. Results showed that the simulated thermal anomalies could be consistent with the observed in magnitude and spatio-temporal distribution. Before the Wenchuan earthquake, deformation-related thermal anomalies occurred mainly in the fault zone and its adjacent hanging wall, which are usually abnormal temperature rise, and occasionally abnormal cooling, occurring in the fault zone after the peak temperature rise. In the fault zone, the thermal anomaly is usually greater than the order of 1K of the equivalent air temperature and is controlled by the combined effect of fluid convection and stress change. The temperature increases first and then decreases before the earthquake. In the hanging wall, it's weaker than that of the fault zone, mainly depending on the convection of the fluid. The temperature gradually increases before the earthquake and is dramatically affected by the permeability. Usually, only when the permeability is larger than 10^-13m², can the air temperature rise higher than 1K occur. The results of this study support the view that fluid convection and stress change caused by fault slip before the earthquake can produce observable air temperature anomalies.

The May 12, 2008 M_S7.9 Wenchuan earthquake is ranked as one of the most devastating natural disasters ever occurred in modern Chinese history. The Longmenshan Fault(LMSF) zone is the seismogenic source structure, which consists of three sub-parallel faults, i.e., the Guanxian-Jiangyou Fault(GJF) in the frontal, the Yingxiu-Beichuan Fault(YBF) in the central fault and the Wenchuan-Maowen Fault(WMF) in the back of the LMSF. In this study, geological survey and seismic profiles are used to constrain the faults geometry and medium parameters. Three visco-elastic finite element models of the LMSF with different main faults are established. From the phase of interseismic stress accumulation to coseismic stress release and postseismic adjustment, the Wenchuan earthquake is simulated using Continuous-Discrete Element Method(CDEM). Modeling results show that before the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, the GJF becomes unstable due to the interaction between its unique fault geometry and the tectonic stress loading. In the fault geometry model, the GJF is the most gently dipped fault among the three faults, which in return makes it having the smallest normal stress and the greatest shear stress. The continuous shear stress loading finally meets the fault failure criteria and the Wenchuan earthquake starts to initiate on the GJF at the depth of 15~20km. The earthquake rupture then propagated to the YBF. At the same time, due to the GJF and YBF rupture, the interseismic stress accumulation has been greatly reduced, causing the WMF failed to rupture. Although the stress accumulation in the WMF has been reduced significantly after the earthquake, yet it has not been released completely, which means that the WMF likely has with high seismic risk after the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake. We also find that the stress perturbation caused by gently dipping segment of the fault can promote the passive rupture in the steeply dipping segment, making the upper limit of dip angles larger than traditional assumption.

This study focuses on four moderate-sized earthquakes in the northern margin of the Qaidam Basin, northeastern Tibet Plateau, China, of which one occurred in 2008, and three in 2009, respectively. We obtain coseismic displacement fields of these four events using Envisat descending ASAR data and D-InSAR technology. The results show that the 2008 earthquake has only one deformation center and the 2009 earthquakes have three deformation centers in their fields. The maximum displacement of 2008 and 2009 earthquakes are 0.097m and 0.41m in the LOS(line of sight), respectively. We invert ground displacements of these earthquakes based on elastic dislocation models to estimate slip distribution on fault planes. For the 2008 event, using a one-segment fault model, the inversion reveals peak slip of about 0.47m occurring at a depth of 19km. For the 2009 earthquakes, the ground displacement pattern observed by InSAR can be fitted by a three-segment fault model with smallest RMS of residuals. The three sectional fault model is considered the most reliable.

According to the structure of the Himalayan orogenic belt, a low-angle antilistric thrust-slip fault model is used to simulate the ramp on the rupture portion of the Main Himalayan Fault. Based on descending Alos -2 and Sentinal -1 data, we invert for the coseismic slip models of the Gorkha earthquake and its largest aftershock, Kodari earthquake. In contrast to the inversion using Alos -2 or Sentinal -1 separately, the joint inversion of both data sets has stronger constraint for the deep slip and can obtain more details in Gorkha earthquake. The rupture depth obtained by joint inversion can be as deep as 24km underground, cutting across the locking line to the transition of locked and the creeping zone. The largest slip is as large as 4.5m appearing 17km underground and the dip angle is between 3°and 10°. Gorkha and Kodari earthquakes have the similar focal mechanisms, both of which are mainly thrusting, and yet some right-lateral slip component in Gorkha earthquake. The inversion results reveal that slip models of the Nepal mainshock and its largest aftershock are complementary in space and the Kodari earthquake occurs in the gaps of slip in Gorkha earthquake. The epicenter of the Kodari earthquake is just right in the transitive zone of the positive and negative Coulomb stress change, where the Coulomb stress change can reach 0.4MPa. We thus argue that Kodari earthquake has been triggered by the Gorkha earthquake.

The 2008 Gaize M_W6.4 earthquake,occurring on the tensional active fault zone located between Lhasa terrane and Qiangtang terrane in the interior of Tibet is a typical normal-faulting event.In this paper,we resolve the three-dimensional coseismic displacement fields of the earthquakes using a least-square iterative approximation solution with a priori knowledge,according to the theoretical basis that InSAR measurements are extremely insensitive to N-S component.Results show that the boundary dividing the two sides of the main-shock fault is very clear in the vertical movement,and two remarkable subsidence centers can be observed on the hanging wall,while amplitude of the west one (-48.9cm) is larger than the east (-41.4cm),but the maximum uplift on the footwall is only 5cm.In addition to some northward movement with amplitude less than 5cm around the aftershock fault,the north-south deformation field suggests an overall southward movement.The three-dimensional results indicate that the induced surface movement is predominantly vertical and mostly occurred on the upper side,while there are obvious east-west separation and eastward rotation in the horizontal plane.The full vectors are consistent with simulated deformation field with the RMSE less than 6cm,so the research demonstrates the feasibility of the method to recover precise three-dimensional deformation field.On the whole,the three-dimensional deformation field coincides with the tensile fracture characteristics of Gaize earthquakes,and the tectonic stress background of coeval east-west extension and north-south shortening.

We achieved the coseismic displacements of the Napa M_W6.1 earthquake located in California US occurring on 24 August 2014 by using InSAR data from the newly launched ESA's Sentinel-1A satellite. The 30m×30m ASTER GDEM was used to remove the terrain effect, and phase unwrapping method of branch-cut algorithm was adopted. In order to obtain a better coseismic displacement field, we also tested 90m×90m SRTM data to remove the terrain effect and Minimum Cost Flow algorithm to unwrap the phase. Results showed that the earthquake caused a significant ground displacement with maximum uplift and subsidence of 0.1m and -0.09m in the satellite light of sight(LOS). Based on the Sentinel-1A dataset and sensitivity based iterative fitting(SBIF) method of restrictive least-squares algorithm, we obtained coseismic fault slip distribution and part of the earthquake source parameters. Inversion results show that the strike angle is 341.3°, the dip angle is 80°, rupture is given right-lateral fault, average rake angle is -176.38°, and the maximum slip is ~0.8m at a depth of 4.43km. The accumulative seismic moment is up to 1.6×10¹⁸N·m, equivalent to a magnitude of M_W6.14.

In the past few years, the improved InSAR technology based on time series analyses to many SAR images has been used for measurement of interseismic deformation along active fault. In the paper, we first made a summary and introduction to the basic principle and technical characteristics of existing Time Series InSAR methods(such as Stacking, PSInSAR, SBAS). Then we presented a case study on the central segment of Haiyuan Fault in west China. We attempt to use the PS-InSAR(Permanent Scatter InSAR)technique to estimate the motion rate fields of this fault. We processed and analyzed 17 scenes of ENVISAT/ASAR images in descending orbits from 2003-2010 using the PS-InSAR method. The results reveal the whole movement pattern around the Haiyuan Fault and a remarkable velocity gradient of about 5mm/a across the central segment of the fault. The motion scenes are consistent with left-lateral strike-slip. On this basis, we make a discussion on some issues about observation of fault activity using Time Series InSAR methods, such as the changes of LOS deformation rates with fault strike and region width observed across a fault, fault reciprocity and motion style indicated by Time Series InSAR rate map and the relationship between the InSAR LOS deformation and the ones from other methods. All these studies will benefit the promotion of InSAR application in detection of tectonic movement.

Vertical coseisimic deformation near seismogenic fault is one of the most important parameters for understanding the fault behavior, especially for thrust or normal fault, since near field vertical deformation provides meaningful information for understanding the rupture characteristics of the seismogenic fault and focal mechanism. Taking Wenchuan thrust earthquake for an example, we interpolate GPS horizontal observed deformation using Biharmonic spline interpolation and derive them into east-westward or north-southward deformation field. We first use reliable GPS observed value to correct InSAR reference point and unify both GPS and InSAR coordinate frame. We then make a profile using InSAR data and compare it to that from GPS data and we find GPS and InSAR observation reference point has a 9.93cm difference in the hanging wall side, and around -11.49cm in the footwall. After correction, we obtain a continuous vertical deformation field of the Wenchuan earthquake by combined calculation of GPS and InSAR LOS deformation field. The results show that the vertical deformation of both hanging wall and foot wall of the fault decreases rapidly, with deformation greater than 30cm within 50km across the fault zone. The uneven distribution of the vertical deformation has some peak values at near fault, mainly distributed at the southern section(the town of Yingxiu), the middle(Beichuan)and the northern end(Qingchuan)of the seismogenic fault. These three segments have their own characteristics. The southern section of the fault has an obvious asymmetric feature, which exhibits dramatic uplift reaching 550cm on the hanging wall, with the maximum uplift area located in Yingxiu town to Lianshanping. The middle section shows a strong anti-symmetric feature, with one side uplifting and the other subsiding. The largest uplifting of the southern segment reaches around 255cm, located at the east of Chaping, and the largest subsiding is in Yongqing, reaching around -215cm. The vertical deformation of the northern section is relatively small and distributed symmetrically mainly in the north of Qingchuan, with the maximum uplift to be 120cm, locating in the northernmost of the seismogenic fault.

Borehole strain monitoring is an important geodetic means with a wide range of use in geodynamics research. One of the main reasons for the slow development of this kind of observation is that the establishment of a borehole strain monitoring site is costly and the success rate is not very high. Some sites fail due to the unfavorable borehole conditions,that is,rocks at the depth where the sensor is embedded are not intact but fractured. Sometimes even if the rocks were found not as good as required,the instrument had to be installed because of the expansive cost in drilling the hole. To solve the problem,it is necessary to prospect the rock condition of the site before drilling. Fractured rocks usually contain ground water in the fractures,which lower the rocks' resistivity. Resistivity imaging survey can be applied to the investigation of underground condition and give local distribution of resistivity with relatively high resolution. Three experiments have been carried out in Shanxi Province,in which single profiling is done at Shanghuangzhuang,cross profilings at Dongmafang and at Jiaokou,respectively. Three boreholes at Shanghuangzhuang and one at Dongmafang and at Jiaokou each were drilled for comparison of different types of instruments. Results of rocks strength experiments and instrument installations for the five boreholes agree well with results of the surveys. It suggests that resistivity imaging survey is an effective method to predict the underground condition of rocks. Instrument installation should avoid low-resistivity zones indicated by the profiling to prevent putting the sensor into fractured rocks.

The interferometric baseline is a vital parameter in the InSAR technique,which determines the correlation between two repeat-pass images and imposes direct effect on the accuracy and reliability of the mapping result. If the baseline is not accurately estimated,the residual phases from the orbit and topography will be left in the expected phase of deformation leading to errors of the final result. In this work,we analyze the influences of the baseline on the reference phase and simulated topography phase,and present several methods of interferometric baseline estimation. Then we study the mapping process of the coseismic and post-seismic deformation of the 1997 Mani,Tibet M7.7 earthquake based on the 8-sence ERS2-SAR data and InSAR.Our attention is focused on comparison of interferograms under varied conditions for baseline estimations,such as rough orbit data,precise orbit data,frequency of interferometric fringes and control points on the ground. The result shows that when the baseline is estimated by rough orbit data,the yielded differential interferograms contain considerable phases of orbit residuals which make fringes dense and deformation enlarged. Thus we must use the precise orbit data for baseline estimation. Sometimes,however,the influence of the orbit cannot be removed completely even if we employ precise orbit data. In this case we should make further corrections,including removing superfluous fringes based on interferometric fringes frequency and baseline correction using the control points on the ground. With these improvements,the resultant coseismic displacement along the fault of the Mani earthquake is 4.5m. The post-seismic deformation by this event is concentrated in a narrow 10～20km-long zone around the fault. The accumulated fault slip 508 days after the main shock reaches at least 5.6m,which continues to grow with time. These analysis results are consistent with the field observations,meaning the improvement method presented in this paper is effective.

We used the radar data from the satellite ALOS/PALSAR of Japan and the differential interferometric synthetic aperture radar(D-InSAR)technology to derive the coseismic displacement field produced by the M_S 8.0 Wenchuan,Sichucan Province,China earthquake on 12 May 2008.Based on processing SAR data of 7 tracks and 112 scenes by the two-pass method,we obtained the interferometric map of 450km×450km covering the causative fault and determined the distribution range of incoherent zones.Proper phase unwrapping was performed to these tracks of continuous and discontinuous phases,yielding digital image of the interferometric displacement field,which is analyzed by displacement contours and the profile across the fault.The result shows that the Wenchuan M_S 8.0 earthquake has produced a vast area of surface deformation along the Yingxiu-Beichuan Fault,primarily concentrated in a near-field range of 100km wide on the both sides of the causative fault.In this field,the 250km-long and 15～35km wide incoherent zone nearby the fault has suffered the largest deformation with surface ruptures,of which the amount is too large to measure by InSAR.The secondary deformed areas are 70km wide on each side of the incoherent zone,where envelope-like fringes are clear,continuous and converging towards the fault,indicative of increasing gradient and amplitude of displacements which exhibit sunk north wall and uplifted south wall in sight line.With respect to the north and south edges of the data track,the maximum subsidence in the north wall is 110～120cm appearing northeast of Wenhcuan and Maoxian,and a big range of descents of 55～60cm occurred nearby the epicenter south of Lixian.The largest uplift 120～135cm in the south wall is present at the epicenter west of Yingxiu,north to Dujiangyan and around Beichuan.The maximum relative displacement between the north and south walls is up to 240cm that appears nearby the epicenter west of Yingxiu and north to Dujiangyan.In the far-field 70km away from the incoherent zones on the both sides of the causative fault,there are sparse fringes indicative of displacements less than 10cm.The profile across the fault indicates a highly variable gradient of deformation with profound heterogeneity near the fault and in its hanging wall,and a relatively uniform deformation in the foot wall.These differences of deformation can be attributed to complicated thrust faulting.Our analysis suggests that the fault rupture of the Wenchuan earthquake is a relative thrust between the two walls of the fault.

There are two earthquakes in Gaize on Jan 9(M_S 6.9)and Jan 16,2008(M_S 6.0).The two earthquakes were selected as examples to obtain the co-seismic deformation field with the 2-pass differential interferometric processing method.The results show that the earthquake faults locate near the tip of the Yibuchaka-Riganpeicuo Fault,and both seismic faults are normal faults;The seismogenic fault of the main shock strikes about N30癊 and that of the aftershock strikes about N21癊;There is evidence of surface rupture along the mainshock's causative fault,but no surface rupture has been observed on the aftershock fault;The co-seismic deformation field is about 30km in length and 20km in width;The maximum displacement in LOS of the hanging wall of the main-shock fault is 39.2cm,and that of footwall is 11.2cm,the relative dislocation between them is 50.4cm;The displacement caused by the aftershock is 9.4cm(LOS).

Using D-InSAR technology and by processing 7 track 56 scenes ALOS/PALSAR data,the surface deformation field of Wenchuan,Sichuan earthquake on May 12,2008 has been extracted.The deformation field covers a 500km?450km area and crosses Jinchuan-Shimian,Heishui-Leshan,Songpan-Pengshan,Nanping-Jianyang,and Kangxian-Chongqing regions,including the severely earthquake-hit areas,such as Lixian,Wenchuan,Maoxian,Beichuan,Qingchuan,and so on.The results show that the deformation field scope is large and the Sichuan basin has been deformed to different degrees.The incoherent belt near earthquake fault shows that the main earthquake surface rupture zone is on the Beichuan-Yingxiu Fault zone.The trackable surface rupture zone runs from the southwest of Yingxiu near the macroscopic epicenter to the north of Suhe in Qingchuan county,about 230km long.The southwest section of the seismogenic fault from Wenchuan to Maoxian shows an incoherent band width obviously larger than that of other incoherent parts,which is closely related to the surface rupture from Dujiangyan to Anxian on the Pengxian-Guanxian Fault(the Mountain Front Fault),and this surface rupture zone is about 70km long.Away from the seismic fault region,the northwest wall of the fault uplifted and the southeast wall subsided.However,both walls in the vicinity of the seismic fault uplifted locally,and along the fault the distribution is very uneven,showing strong segmentation,which indicates the fault is characterized by reverse thrust.The differences of epicentral positions and earthquake origin time given by Harvard,USGS,NEIC,CENC also show that the Wenchuan earthquake rupture process is a multi-point breakdown process.The largest relative deformation amounting to 260cm occurred in the epicentral region on the west of Yingxiu;if converted into vertical deformation,the relative vertical deformation of the two regions is up to 3.3m.In Ya'an and Emei mountain area,the settlement is about 35cm.In Chongqing and to its south,there is about 25cm small-scale uplift.

Using the focal mechanisms and slip distribution model of the M_S 8.0 Wenchuan earthquake,we inverted the co-seismic Coulomb failure stress change.The inverted Coulomb stress change based on Chen J's slip distribution model shows that about 83%of its aftershocks lie in regions where the Coulomb stress increased by 0.01MPa,given the receiver fault' strike/dip/rake as 204?/56?/98? respectively.In contrast,the distribution of aftershocks is sparse in areas where the inverted Coulomb stress change is decreased by 0.01MPa.From this we can tell that aftershocks are abundant where the Coulomb stress change rose by more than 0.01MPa,and aftershocks are sparse where the Coulomb stress dropped by a similar amount.This study and the forerunner,Ma et al(2005),demonstrate that even when the source geometry and slip distribution are complex,Coulomb stress change is correlated with the distribution of aftershocks.And its main characteristic is that for most of the region in the northern wall of the fault the Coulomb stress dropped by 0.01MPa and for most of the region in the southern wall of the fault,it increased by 0.01MPa.The tendency of change of the Coulomb stress field is progressed to the direction of N-E and S-W.At last,we calculated the Coulomb stress change on most of the existing faults based on Deng's active fault data.The results show that the Coulomb stress change on several strike-slip faults is decreased by about 0.01MPa,including Maerkang Fault,southeast Chengdu thrust fault,Huya Fault,Min Jiang Fault,west Qinling north-edge fault and Qinling north-edge fault.This means these faults may be less dangerous in future earthquakes.There are several strike-slip faults on which the Coulomb stress change are increased by about 0.01MPa,including eastern Kunlun Fault,northern part of Chengdu thrust fault,Wenxian Fault,and western part of west Qinling north-edge fault.These results are consistent with that of Tom Parsons et al.What brings contradiction is that when comes to Xianshuihe Fault,our results show an increase by about 0.01MPa in the middle part of Xianshuihe Fault,at longitude 101.2皌o 102癊 and latitude 30皌o 31.04癗.The Coulomb stress change in most part of Xianshuihe Fault is decreased,which means the Xianshuihe Fault system has a potential seismic risk lower that it had before the M_S 8.0 Wenchuan earthquake.

In water area,shallow groundwater area and plains with thick Quaternary sediments,drilling is necessary for active fault survey.Due to complex facies change of Quaternary terrestrial formation,there is no mature scheme for the key problems such as borehole arrangement,decision and correlation of isochron surfaces and deciphering of episodic activity of fault.A test of drillhole exploration was implemented across the northern segment of Nankou-Sunhe Fault buried under Beijing plain.Based on the data of shallow seismic investigation,we drilled a row of boreholes.A combined borehole section was built by sequence stratigraphy,lithology and facies analysis,magnetic susceptibility and absolute chronology,which can define the location,geometry and accumulated displacements in several time spans.The result shows that the fault has an episodic movement since 60ka BP.The active stages of the fault are 60ka to 47ka BP,36ka to 28ka BP,and 16ka to present,respectively.Other intervals are relatively stable.The average vertical slip rate is 0.35mm/a from 60 ka to 37ka BP,0mm/a from 37ka to 32ka BP,0.78mm/a from 32ka to 12ka BP,and 0.35mm/a since 12ka BP.Stratigraphic cyclicity is the main issue of sequence stratigraphy.The cyclicity is of multilevel character.Controlled by climate fluctuations,tectonic movements and matter source factors,each sequence has a specialty itself as effective index to the correlation of borehole strata.Correlation of borehole strata from big to small sequence in turn can effectively reduce the blindness and the uncertainty.Hiatus of sediment strata of low base level such as low-water-level system territory and transgression territory on uplifted side indicates existence of fault scarp and active stage of fault slip.Along with the rise and later fall of base level,together with the attenuation of fault activity,high-water-level system territory and regression system territory may deposit on the uplifted side.Contrarily,homo sequence on both sides indicates weak activity of fault.Magnetic susceptibility reflects well the size difference of terrestrial formation and its vertical fluctuation corresponds well with sequence cyclicity.United application of sequence stratigraphy,lithology and facies analysis,magnetic susceptibility and age dating can achieve high-precision correlation of strata across boreholes.Since the late Quaternary shows distinct climate fluctuation of millenary scale,the substitute index of climate has a potential in high-precision correlation of strata.The borehole correlation of thick stratigraphic succession with a distance of 20～40m is easy in alluvial plains away from the affected zone of fault action.Whereas within rupture zone of fault,the correlation of strata thinner than 1m with a distance no more than 5m is usually difficult if there are no evident horizon markers,although such correlation is necessary for deciphering single surface rupture event.Some fault-scarp-derived colluvial wedges with a width less than the distance of neighbour holes may be missed.Therefore once the fault zone is limited within a bound less than 20m,hole distance less than 2～3m is necessary for probing single event.For the limit of borehole distance and the precision of stratigraphic subdivision,the correlation of borehole strata by sequence stratigraphy cannot reach sub-meter precision,and therefore can only decipher active and quiet stages of fault,but not single surface rupture event.An active stage may include several single surface rupture events.

The M_S7.9 Mani earthquake happened at the north border of the Qiangtang basin of Tibet, near the NEE trending Maergaichaka-Ruolacuo fault, on November 8, 1997. The region of Qiangtang with cold weather and thin air means harsh field conditions. There is no deformation observation station around in several hundreds kilometers scale. All these realistic situations put limits on learning the surface deformation field of the earthquake region and deformation of active faults. Fortunately, D-InSAR technology is available which is not affected by all these factors and has preponderant advantages in acquiring information of spatial deformation field evolution.This research collected 12 scenes ERS-1/2 Radar Satellite data of ESA from January 1995 to December 2000. ERS-1 SAR data are included, i.e. 2889/19960415, 2907 /19960415. And there are 10 ERS-2 SAR data: 2889/19960416, 2907/19960416, 2889/19970121, 2907/19970121, 2889/19970610, 2907/19970610, 2889/19970819, and 2907/19970819. These SAR data were handled using three-pass of four-pass Differential Interferomertric modes.Three dynamic images of pre-seismic Interferometric Deformation Field of the 1997 M_S7.9 Mani earthquake were acquired by using D-InSAR technology. The result shows that 10 months prior to the Mani event, a left-lateral shear trend appeared in the seismic area, which was in accordance with the earthquake fault in nature. The quantity of local deformation on the northern wall was slightly larger than that on the southern wall, and the deformation distribution area of the northern wall was relatively large. With the event being impending, the deformation of the southern wall varied increasingly, and the deformation center shifted eastward. Two and half months before the event, the western side of the fault was still locked while the eastern side began to slide, implying that the whole fault would rupture any moment. The most remarkable deformation zones appeared in northern and southern walls, which were parallel to and apart from the fault about 40km, with accumulated local displacements of 344mm on the northern wall and 251mm on the southern wall, respectively. The southern wall was the active one with larger displacements.