Earthquakes
Overview
About 50 earthquakes occur each day around the world. Although most of these do not have a noticeable effect on life and work, large-magnitude earthquakes occurring near cities and towns can cause catastrophic devastation through destruction of buildings and infrastructure. Earthquakes occurring near coastlines or under oceans also have the ability of generating tsunamis with waves over 100 feet high that can sweep away buildings, causing extensive damage in coastal regions. Immediately following an earthquake, aftershocks, or subsequent earthquakes, may continue for weeks, causing additional damage and hampering recovery. Since 2015, over 10,000 people around the world have died from earthquakes and tsunamis.
An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the perceptible shaking of the surface of the Earth, resulting from the sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves.
Examples of catastrophic damage caused by earthquakes, tsunamis, and earthquake-triggered landslides:
(a) Damage suffered in Amatrice, Italy, from a M6.2 earthquake on August 24, 2016. Almost 300 people were killed as a result of this Central Italy earthquake (image credit, New York Times).
(b) Tsunami resulting from the March-2011 Tohoku M9.1 undersea earthquake in Japan (image credit, ABC).
(c) Landslide triggered as a result of the April-2015 Gorkha M7.6 earthquake in Nepal (image credit, Science).
To help assess the event and provide situational awareness due to these natural occurrences, NASA utilizes expertise in sensor networks and remote sensing. These data products can support search and rescue efforts and determine disaster impact to aid stakeholder efforts in emergency response and recovery.
One example of the NASA Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) capabilities is shown below. ARIA relies mainly on satellite radar datasets collected primarily using Copernicus Sentinel 1-A processed by ESA and ALOS-2 SAR instruments. Data products derived from satellite radar datasets are not impacted by cloud cover and can be acquired during day or night. Maps are available between within a day to several days after the earthquake, depending on the availability of earliest post-earthquake radar observations.
Examples of damage proxy maps (DPMs) generated following the Central Italy M6.2 earthquake on August 24, 2016. DPMs generated by the Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) project and the Copernicus team. ARIA DPMs utilize satellite data to detect locations where an earthquake has caused significant damage (source: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/spaceimages/details.php?id=PIA21091).
Besides these disaster response and recovery tools, NASA can also apply capabilities of its airborne instruments in order to assess the impacts of catastrophic events. These instruments include optical (AVIRIS, AVIRIS-NG), radar (UAVSAR), and LiDAR (ASO) capabilities that can be deployed to image affected areas. An example of UAVSAR relevance to earthquake events is shown below where ground movement is quantified following an initial earthquake.
UAVSAR data following the 2010 Mexicali earthquake.
Source: https://uavsar.jpl.nasa.gov/images/what-is-uavsar/Slide22.jpg
Datasets
Latest Updates
January 15, 2020
The NASA Earth Applied Sciences Disasters Program has activated a “Tier 1” response to the earthquakes in Puerto Rico, which entails collecting information and coordinating with stakeholders and university partners. The program is participating in inter-agency calls with federal agencies leading the response effort including the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), along with the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, to provide NASA Earth-observing data in support of the response...
January 13, 2020
NASA scientists are using satellite data to help federal and local agencies identify areas with potential damage. Earthquakes cause permanent changes to the ground surface. By comparing interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) data acquired on Jan. 9, 2020, with data acquired on Dec. 28, 2019, from the Copernicus Sentinel-1A satellite, the scientists were able to map where, how much and in what direction those changes occurred.
July 26, 2019
On July 4 and 5 near the city of Ridgecrest in Southern California two large-magnitude earthquakes struck, generating surface ruptures and damaging homes and businesses. NASA's GeoGateway team, led by research scientist Andrea Donnellan, conducted a series of drone flights to map in 3D the post-earthquakes changes in topography and terrain. The data was requested by the California Earthquake Clearninghouse and the Geotechnical Extreme Events Reconnaissance (GEER) Association, with flight locations supplied by Christine Goulet, Executive Director for Applied Science at the Southern...
July 17, 2019
The Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, created this map depicting areas that are likely damaged as a result of the recent major earthquakes in Southern California. The color variation from yellow to red indicates increasingly more significant surface change, or damage. The map covers an area of 155 by 186 miles (250 by 300 kilometers), shown by the large red polygon. Each pixel measures about 33 yards (30 meters) across.
July 9, 2019
UPDATE 7/11/19:
This new imagery from the NASA-JPL ARIA team shows a decorrelation map on the left that shows surface rupture and disturbance, and an updated surface deformation map on the right produced at a higher resuolution of 30m. Credit: NASA-JPL, JAXA,
The ARIA team at NASA-JPL has produced this updated imagery of the recent California earthquakes. Shown on the left is a decorrelation map that shows surface rupture and disturbance in red. The background noise level is lower...
July 9, 2019
MISR plume height retrievals for the Raikoke eruption. Credit: V. Flower, R. Kahn / NASA GSFC
Volcanic eruptions can generate significant amounts of atmospheric aerosols that often have regional to global impacts. To determine the influence of volcanic eruptions, accurate plume heights are needed, but are difficult to obtain due to the hazardous nature of such eruptions. Stereo images from NASA’s Multi-Angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR) make it possible to map plume heights...
December 1, 2018
The circles in Fig. 2 indicate the data uncertainty range; signals beyond the circles are meaningful.
On November 30, 2018 a magnitude 7 earthquake occurred near Anchorage, Alaska cracking buildings, damaging roads and buckling bridges. Over 4,500 structures were destroyed in the event. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) / NOAA tsunami detection prototype generated many real-time results during the Alaska event. Results from the warning system were generated and forwarded to Tsunami Warning...
October 7, 2018
September 10, 2018
ARIA Damage Proxy Map of the Hokkaido, Japan earthquake comparing data from before (August 23, 2018) and after (September 6, 2018) the earthquake.
The Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and Caltech created a Damage Proxy Map (DPM) depicting areas in the southwestern part of Hokkaido, Japan, that are likely damaged (shown in red and yellow pixels) as a result of the earthquake on September 5,...
October 3, 2018
This map was created from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Near Real-Time Global (NRT) Flood Mapping product. This image shows the 3-day composite flood (new/anomalous) water in red on top of the surface (known/existing) water in yellow. According to several news media outlets, many coastal buildings and streets were already flooded on September 28, 2018, indicating that an initial wave had already hit the coast in Palu, Indonesia. (Source: The New York Times,...
October 3, 2018
Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corporation Operational Land Imager (OLI) on the United States Geological Survey and NASA’s Landsat 8 satellite captured a natural-color image of Palu, Indonesia on October 2, 2018. The second image shows the same area before the earthquake and tsunami. The false-color (...
October 4, 2018
The Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech in Pasadena, CA created a Damage Proxy Map (DPM) version 0.7 depicting areas in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, including the city of Palu that are damaged. The damaged areas are depicted as red and yellow pixels. Damage occurred as a result of the magnitude 7.5 earthquake on September 28, 2018. The map is derived from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images from the ALOS-2...
October 11, 2018
NASA's ARIA Along-Track Deformation Map
Scientists with the Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis project (ARIA), a collaboration between NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and Caltech, also in Pasadena, using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data from the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Advanced Land Observing Satellite-2 (ALOS-2) PALSAR-2, generated maps of the deformation of Earth’s surface caused by the Sept. 28, 2018 magnitude 7.5 earthquake under...
October 16, 2018
ARIA Cross-Track Interferogram, Sulawesi Earthquake
The Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech in Pasadena, CA created this false-color map showing deformation in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, including the city of Palu, as a result of the Magnitude 7.5 earthquake on September 28, 2018. The map is derived from synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images from the ALOS-2 satellite, operated by Japan Aerospace Exploration...
August 19, 2018
ARIA Damage Proxy Map (DPM) comparing JAXA ALOS-2 SAR data from May 13, 2018 vs. August 19, 2018.
The Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) team at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and Caltech, also in Pasadena, created this Damage Proxy Map (DPM) depicting areas in the northeastern part of Lombok Island, Indonesia, that are likely damaged (shown by red and yellow pixels) as a result of the major earthquake sequence (including the M6.4 July 29...
October 5, 2016
NASA/JPL-Caltech-produced maps of damage in and around Amatrice, Italy, from the Aug. 2016, quake, based on ground surface changes detected by Italian and Japanese radar satellites. The color variations from yellow to red indicate increasingly more significant ground surface change.
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/JAXA/ASI/European Union - Joint Research Centre/Google Earth
A NASA-funded program provided valuable information for responders and groups supporting the recovery efforts for the Aug. 24, 2016...
August 7, 2018
Scientists with the Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis project (ARIA), a collaboration between NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and Caltech, also in Pasadena, using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data from the European Union’s Copernicus Sentinel-1A and -1B satellites, operated by the European Space Agency, generated a map of the deformation of Earth’s surface caused by the Aug. 5, 2018 magnitude 6.9 earthquake under Lombok island, Indonesia. The deformation map is produced from automated interferometric processing of the SAR...
February 17, 2018
Interferogram from modified Copernicus Sentinel-1 SAR data acquired 2018/02/17 and 02/05 shows earthquake fault slip on subduction megathrust beneath coast caused up to 40 cm of uplift of the ground surface. Interferometric SAR (InSAR) analysis was automatically performed by Caltech-JPL ARIA data system. Main image shows motion towards satellite (up and west) in radar line-of-sight direction. Additional images show motion contoured with 9 cm (image 2) and 2.8 cm (image 3) color contours, also known as fringes, displayed in Google Earth. Symbols show preliminary USGS and Mexican seismic...
August 7, 2018
February 17, 2018
Rewrapped Sentinel-1 Interferogram for the M7.2 Pinotepa de Don Luis, Mexico earthquake from Feb 16, 2018.
Ascending Sentinel-1 SAR interferogram rewrapped to 10cm color contours of line-of-sight surface deformation. The frame was processed automatically by the UAF SARVIEWS processing service (http://sarviews-hazards.alaska.edu/). Sentinel-1 data from 02/05/18 and 02/17/18 was used. Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data [2018]. Data accessed through the Alaska Satellite Facility....