Constraining the spatial variability of the thickness of the ice shell of Enceladus (i.e., the crust) is central to our understanding of its thermodynamics and habitability. In this study, we develop a new methodology to infer regional variations in crustal thickness using measurements of tidally-driven elastic strain. As proof of concept, we recover thickness variations from synthetic finite-element models of the crust subjected to diurnal eccentricity tides. We demonstrate recovery of crustal thickness to within ~2 km of true values with < 0.2 km error over spherical harmonic degrees l ≤ 12 (corresponding to half-wavelengths ≥ 60 km). Our computed uncertainty is significantly smaller than the inherent ~10 km ambiguity associated with inferring variations in crustal thickness solely from gravity and topography measurements. We therefore conclude that measuring elastic strain provides a relatively robust approach for probing crustal structure at Enceladus.

The thickness of the outer ice shell plays an important role in several geodynamical processes at ocean worlds. Here, we show that observations of tidally-driven diurnal surface displacements can constrain the mean ice shell thickness. Such estimates are sensitive to any significant structural features that break spherical symmetry such as faults and lateral variation in ice shell thickness and structure. We develop a finite-element model of Enceladus to calculate diurnal tidal displacements for a range of mean crustal thickness values in the presence of such structural heterogeneities. Consistent with results from prior studies, we find that the presence of variations in ice shell thickness can significantly amplify deformation in thinned regions. If major faults are also activated by tidal forcing ---such as Tiger Stripes on Enceladus---their characteristic surface displacement patterns could easily be measured using modern geodetic methods. Within the family of Enceladus models explored, estimates of mean crustal thickness that assume spherical symmetry a priori can deviate from the true value by as much as ~41% when structural heterogeneities are present. Additionally, we show that crustal heterogeneites near the South Pole produce differences of up to 35% between Love numbers evaluated at different spherical harmonic orders. A ~41% range in estimates of mean crustal thickness from Love numbers is smaller than that found with approaches relying on static gravity and topography (~250%) or analyzing diurnal libration amplitudes (~ 85%) to infer mean crustal thickness at Enceladus. As such, we find that analysis of diurnal tidal deformation is a relatively robust approach to inferring mean crustal thickness.

Antarctic ice shelves play a key role in regulating the rate of ice flow in tributary ice streams. Temporal variations in the associated ice-shelf buttressing stress are observed to impact ice flow in glaciers and ice streams. Ephemeral grounding induced by tides is an important mechanism for modulating the buttressing stress. Here, we develop an approach to inferring variations in 3-D surface displacements at an ice-shelf-stream system that explicitly accounts for ephemeral grounding. Using a temporally dense nine-month-long synthetic-aperture radar image acquisition campaign collected over Rutford Ice Stream, West Antarctica, by the 4-satellite COSMO-SkyMed constellation, we infer the ephemeral grounding zones and the spatiotemporal variation of the fortnightly ice-flow variability. We find ephemeral grounding zones along the western ice-shelf margin as well as a few prominent ephemeral grounding points in the central trunk and in the vicinity of the grounding zone. Our observations provide evidence for tide-modulated buttressing stress and the temporally asymmetric response of ice-shelf flow to tidal forcing. Long-term oceanic warming and ice-shelf thinning will cause the loss of ephemeral grounding and decrease in ice-shelf buttressing stress.

Understanding the nature and behavior of the rocks in boundary zones between tectonic plates is important to improve our understanding of earthquake-associated hazard. Laboratory experiments can derive models that explain material behavior on small scales and under controlled conditions. These models can also be tested on observations of surface motion near plate boundaries: Fitting surface displacements from earthquakes (either shortterm offsets or longterm motion) yields estimates of rock properties for each model. However, using only observations from a single earthquake (from immediately after the quake and/or the subsequent years), may not allows us to confidently distinguish between models. In this study, we investigate the potential of using the displacement timeseries from multiple earthquakes, as well as the period between the quakes, to distinguish between proposed models. We use methods that enable comparison between models and parameters taking into account uncertainties, and perform our assessment on an artificial dataset.

Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) measurements are increasingly being used to measure small amplitude tectonic deformations over large spatial scales. Residual signals are often present at these scales, and are interpreted to be noise of indeterminate origin, limiting studies of long-wavelength deformation. Here, we demonstrate the impact of bulk motion by the Earth’s tectonic plates on InSAR-derived velocity fields. The range-dependent incidence angle of the InSAR observations, coupled with plate velocities of centimeters per year, can induce long-wavelength spatial gradients of millimeters per year over hundreds of kilometers in InSAR-derived velocity fields. We show that, after applying corrections, including for the ionosphere and troposphere, plate motion represents the dominant source of long-wavelength secular velocity gradients in multi-year time series for several study areas. This signal can be accounted for using plate motion models, allowing improved detection of regional tectonic strain at continental scales.

The 4 July 2019 Mw 6.4 Earthquake and 5 July Mw 7.1 Earthquake struck near Ridgecrest, California. Caltech-Jet Propulsion Laboratory Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) project automatically processed synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images from Copernicus Sentinel-1A and -1B satellites operated by the European Space Agency, and products were delivered to the US and California Geological Surveys to aid field response. We integrate geodetic measurements for the three-dimensional vector field of coseismic surface deformation for thee two events and measure the early postseismic deformation, using SAR data from Sentinel-1 satellites and the Advanced Land Observation Satellite-2 (ALOS-2) satellite operated by Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency. We combine less precise large-scale displacements from SAR images by pixel offset tracking or matching, including the along-track component, with the more precise SAR interferometry (InSAR) measurements in the radar line-of-sight direction and intermediate-precision along-track InSAR to estimate all three components of the surface displacement for the two events together. InSAR coherence and coherence change maps the surface disruptions due to fault ruptures reaching the surface. Large slip in the Mw 6.4 earthquake was on a NE-striking fault that intersects with the NW-striking fault that was the main rupture in the Mw 7.1 earthquake. The main fault bifurcates towards the southeast ending 3 km from the Garlock Fault. The Garlock fault had triggered slip of about 15 mm along a short section directly south of the main rupture. About 3 km NW of the Mw 7.1 epicenter, the surface fault separates into two strands that form a pull-apart with about 1 meter of down-drop. Further NW is a wide zone of complex deformation. We image postseismic deformation with InSAR data and point measurements from new GPS stations installed by the USGS. Initial analysis of the first InSAR measurements indicates the pull-apart started rebounding in the first weeks and the main fault had substantial afterslip close to the epicenter where the largest coseismic slip occurred. Slip on a NE-striking fault near the northern end of the main rupture in the first weeks, in the same zone as large and numerous aftershocks along NE-striking and NW-striking trends shows complex deformation.

A secondary zone of surface uplift (SZU), located ~300 kilometers from the trench, has been measured after several megathrust earthquakes. The SZU reached a few centimeters hours after the 2011 Mw 9.1 Tohoku (Japan) earthquake. Less than a day after the 2010 Mw 8.8 Maule (Chile) earthquake, it peaked at 12 cm. Published coseismic finite-fault models for these events do not reproduce the measured SZU. One interpretation is that this SZU is universal, driven by volume deformation around the slab interface (van Dinther et al. 2019). In contrast, with synthetic tests and an investigation of the Maule event, we demonstrate the SZU may instead result from slip on the slab interface. Further, we suggest that slip occurs as rapid postseismic afterslip. We can reproduce the SZU with fault slip if elastic heterogeneities associated with the subducting slab are accounted for, as opposed to assuming homogeneous or layered elastic lithospheric structures.

Until the Mw 6.8 Elazığ earthquake ruptured the central portion of the East Anatolian Fault (EAF) on January 24, 2020, the region had only experienced moderate magnitude (Mw 6.2) earthquakes over the last century. Here, we use geodetic data to constrain a model of subsurface fault slip. We adopt an unregularized Bayesian sampling approach relying solely on physically justifiable prior information and account for uncertainties in both the assumed elastic structure and fault geometry. The rupture of the Elazığ earthquake was bilateral, with two primary disconnected regions of slip. This rupture pattern may be controlled by structural complexity. Both the Elazığ and 2010 Mw 6.1 Kovancılar events ruptured portions of the central EAF that are believed to be coupled during interseismic periods, and the Palu segment is the last portion of the EAF showing a large deficit of fault slip which has not yet ruptured in the last 145 years.

Regional-scale, continuously-operating Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) networks are a powerful tool to monitor plate motion and surface deformation. Since their inception, their size, density, and length of observation record have steadily increased throughout the world. Simultaneously, researchers have had to write accompanying software to enable the analysis (especially the decomposition) of the ever-increasing amount of available timeseries in an efficient way. These codes and respective studies have individually set standards for different subsets of the following desirable qualities: portability (between locations), speed (code runtime), automation (avoiding or simplifying manual inspection of each station), use of spatial correlation (exploiting the fact that stations experience common signals), availability (open source), and documentation (of the usage and underlying methods). In this study, we present the DISSTANS Python package, which aims to combine the aforementioned achievements in a single software by offering generic (therefore portable), parallelizable (fast) methods that can exploit the spatial structure of the observation records in a user-assisted, semi-automated framework, including uncertainty propagation. The code is open source, includes an application interface documentation as well as usage tutorials, is easily extendable, and is based on the previously published and validated method of Riel et al. (2014). We also present two case studies to validate our code, one using a synthetic dataset and one using real GNSS network timeseries.