Relation between rock failure microwave signals detected by AMSR-E and a distribution of ruptures generated by seismic activity

It has already been confirmed that microwave signals are emitted by rock failures in our laboratory experiments. From the results of rock failure experiments, it has been concluded that the microwave signals generated by rock failures near the ground are strong enough to be detected by a satellite borne radiometer like the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for Earth-Observation System (AMSR-E) [1]. Synthetic Aperture Rader (SAR) can detect an area where the land surface was deformed by seismic activity. But it can not determine by what the land surface was deformed, preslips, a main shock or aftershocks due to its poor time resolution. On the other hand, rock failures are likely to occur extremely near the land surface around ruptures in such an area. From our simulation results, microwave signals generated by these rock failures should be detected by AMSR-E. Accordingly, we have developed an algorithm to detect rock failure microwave signals emitted from the ground in association with seismic activity from the data of AMSR-E [2, 3].