Interferogram formation in the presence of complex and large deformation

Sierra Negra volcano in Isabela island, Galapagos, erupted from October 22 to October 30 in 2005. During the 8 days of eruption, the center of Sierra Negra's caldera subsided about 5.4 meters. Three hours prior to the onset of the eruption, an earthquake (Mw 5.4) occurred, near the caldera. Because of the large and complex phase gradient due to the huge subsidence and the earthquake, it is difficult to form an interferogram inside the caldera that spans the eruption. The deformation is so large and spatially variable that the approximations used in existing InSAR software (ROI, ROI_PAC, DORIS, GAMMA) cannot properly coregister SAR image pairs spanning the eruption. We have developed here a two-step algorithm that can form intra-caldera interferograms from these data. The first step involves a rubber-sheeting'' SAR image coregistration. In the second step we use range offset estimates to mitigate the steep phase gradient. Using this new algorithm, we retrieve an interferogram with the best coverage to date inside the caldera of Sierra Negra.