CAREER: Increasing the use of imaging geodesy for studies of tectonics, volcanoes, and glaciers

几个世纪以来，测量地球的形状（称为大地测量学）必然是耗时的。 即使有了像全球定位系统（GPS）这样的新技术，地球的大部分地区仍然很少受到监测。 在过去的17年里，一种新的大地测量学形式迅速发展起来，可以通过比较卫星图像来推断地球表面的运动。 被称为成像大地测量学，天气飞机或卫星视图允许大区域被密集地测量，而没有任何人涉足该地区。 成像大地测量包括几种不同类型的方法，包括干涉合成孔径雷达（干涉合成孔径雷达）以及通过像素或特征跟踪技术自动比较合成孔径雷达和光学图像。 这些技术首次允许经常监测地球表面的大面积变形，并导致在各种领域的发现（包括地震，火山，山体滑坡，冰川，地下水和人为引起的地面变形引起的信号）。 成像大地测量学有可能成为像地震学一样无处不在的工具，但也有一些局限性。 由于国家科学基金会资助的GeoEarthscope档案和其他数据访问倡议，数据访问问题正在减少。 目前广泛使用成像大地测量的一个关键限制是难以获得易于使用但灵活的软件来处理数据和解释结果的知识。 虽然有用于成像大地测量的商业和开放源代码软件包，但没有一个软件包功能齐全，并且对所有应用程序都有很好的记录。 我们将开展一项研究和教育的综合计划，重点是通过成像大地测量对地面变形进行新的观测，并通过改进的软件和文档扩大用户社区，包括面向本科生的教科书和一系列与教科书内容一致的讲座和活动。 这些研究问题对于理解地球物理过程以及寻找地热资源和海平面上升原因等实际应用具有内在的科学价值。我们将使用新的干涉合成孔径雷达数据集（特别是从GeoEarthscope档案），以解决两个研究问题：1）什么是美国和墨西哥盆地山脉省下的岩浆流体的性质和分布，以及它们如何与地表构造？2)在过去的20年里，阿拉斯加的冰川速度是否增加了，导致了冰的变薄和固体地球的变形？

For centuries, measurement of the shape of the Earth (called the science of geodesy) was necessarily time consuming. Even with new technologies like the Global Positioning System (GPS), vast portions of the Earth remain infrequently monitored for movement. Over the past 17 years, a new form of geodesy has rapidly developed whereby satellite images can be compared to infer movements of the Earth's surface. Called imaging geodesy, the synoptic aircraft or satellite views allow large regions to be surveyed densely without any human setting foot in the area. Imaging geodesy encompasses several different types of methods including Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) as well as the automated comparison of SAR and optical images via the techniques of pixel or feature tracking. These techniques have allowed vast areas of the Earth's surface to be monitored frequently for deformation for the first time and led to discoveries in a variety of fields (including signals caused by earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, glaciers, groundwater, and human-induced ground deformation). Imaging geodesy has the potential to become as ubiquitous a tool as seismology, but there have been several limitations. The problem of data access is diminishing thanks to the NSF-funded GeoEarthscope archive and other data access initiatives. A key current limitation to the widespread use of imaging geodesy is access to easy-to-use, but flexible software to process the data and knowledge for interpreting the results. While there are commercial and open source packages for imaging geodesy, none of them is yet fully functional and well documented for all applications. We will undertake an integrated program of research and education, focused on making new observations of ground deformation with imaging geodesy and expanding the community of users through improved software and documentation including a textbook geared towards undergraduates and a set of lectures and activities aligned with the textbook content. These research questions have intrinsic scientific merit for understanding geophysical processes, as well as practical applications like finding geothermal resources, and the causes of sea level rise. We will use newly available InSAR datasets (especially from the GeoEarthscope archive) to address two research questions: 1) What is the nature and distribution of magmatic fluids beneath the U.S. and Mexican Basin & Range Province, and how are they related to surface tectonics? 2) Have glacier velocities in Alaska increased in the last 2 decades, resulting in thinning of the ice and deformation of the solid Earth?