Source: Dan Hawkes
The Geysers, in northern California—the largest producing geothermal
field in the world—is located in a complex tectonic environment
influenced by regional strain and Quaternary volcanism, and local
displacement/deformation resulting from injection and production at the
geothermal field. ESD geophysicist Don Vasco recently led a team of
investigators (including ESD’s Jonny Rutqvist, Pat Dobson, and Curt
Oldenburg) in resolving the deformation at The Geysers Geothermal Field,
using two distinct sets of interferometric synthetic aperture radar
(InSAR) data. They examined the utility of InSAR observations for
monitoring deformation at The Geysers, using permanent and distributed
scatterer techniques to derive estimates of the changes in the
line-of-sight distance. Their results showed compatibility between the
temporal variation in deformation from InSAR data and estimates from
coupled numerical modeling.
For more information, go to: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50314/full
Citation: Vasco, D.W., J. Rutqvist, A. Feretti, A. Rucci, F.
Bellotti, P. Dobson, C. Oldenburg, J. Garcia, M. Walters, and C. Harline
(2013), Monitoring deformation at the Geysers Geothermal Field,
California, using C-band and X-band interferometric synthetic aperture
radar. Geophysical Research Letters, 40 (11); 2567–2572; DOI:
10.1002/grl.50314.
Funding: EERE, Geothermal Technologies Program
