Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) mapping in Vlaykov Vruh and Tsar Assen Cu-porphyry deposits, Panagyurishte ore region, Bulgaria

Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) has been applied using SAR images from the European Space Agency (ESA) Sentinel-1 constellation, in descending orbit, to obtain the terrain displacement by means of the Coherent Pixel Technique (CPT). This Persistent Scatter Interferometry (PSI) technique was developed in 2002 by the Remote Sensing Laboratory (RSLab) of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, UPC (Lanari et al., 2004; Mora et al. 2002), and recently updated by the Dares Technology team.

ESA Sentinel-1 satellite constellation images were used with Single Look Complex (SLC) images and Interferometric Wide Swath (IW) acquisition mode to detect terrain displacements at Vlaykov Vruh and Tsar Assen porphyry-copper deposits (PCD) in the southern part of Panagyurishte ore district in Bulgaria.

The detected displacement magnitude in Vlaykov Vruh was from 500 to 4,000 m² while for Tsar Assen PCD it ranges from 500 to 2,500 m² where several spots of displacement were detected.

We conclude that in the waste pile area east of the Vlaykov Vruh slope instabilities occurred with a displacement of 3.5 cm. Due to a landslide along the fault structure, a slope displacement of about 4.0 cm for Tsar Assen PCD was detected.

The study is supported by the Horizon 2020 co-funded GOLDENEYE project, which has received funds through Grant Agreement 869398.

 

References:

Lanari, R.; Mora, O.; Manunta, M.; Mallorqui, J.J.; Berardino, P.; Sansosti, E. 2004. A small-baseline approach for investigating deformations on full-resolution differential SAR interferograms.’ IEEE Trans. Geosci. Remote Sens., 42, 1377–1386.

Mora, O.; Mallorqui, J.J.; Duro, J. 2002.Generation of deformation maps at low resolution using differential interferometric SAR data.’ Proceedings of 2002 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium, IGARSS ’02, Toronto, ON, Canada.