Monitoring co- and Post-Seismic Ground Deformation During the 2012 Emilia Seismic Sequence Using COSMO-SkyMed Data
Cristiano, Tolomei1; Salvi, Stefano1; Merryman, John P.1; Pezzo, Giuseppe1; Atzori, Simone1; Antonioli, Andrea1; Trasatti, Elisa1; Giuliani, Roberta2; Zoffoli, Simona3; Coletta, Alessandro3
1INGV, ITALY; 2Italian Civil Protection Department, ITALY; 3ASI, ITALY

On May 20, 2012 a moderate earthquake of local magnitude Ml 5.9, started a seismic sequence in the Emilia region of Northern Italy. The aftershock sequence evolved rapidly, and a total of seven earthquakes with Ml>5 occurred in the area in the next fifteen days, the largest of which was an aftershock of Ml 5.8 occurred 12 km W of the mainshock. Immediately after the mainshock, the Italian Civil Protection (DPC) requested the activation of the COSMO-SkyMed constellation in crisis mode, and a frequent image coverage started to be acquired over the area. Several tens of COSMO images were acquired during the next 6 months. The analysis of co-seismic and post-seismic InSAR data allowed to identify the main two fault dislocations, and to identify peculiar deformation patterns presumably related to fluid diffusion in the stressed volume. We will present the deformation data and the source models, and discuss the application of COSMO data to the operational monitoring of seismic sequences.