Ground motion measurement in the Lake Mead area, Nevada, by differential synthetic aperture radar interferometry time series analysis:: Probing the lithosphere rheological structure

We measure ground motion around the Lake Mead, Nevada, using synthetic aperture radar interferometry. The lake water level has fluctuated through time since impoundment in 1935. To quantify the deformation due to water level variations over the past decade, and to constrain the crust and mantle rheological parameters in the lake area, we analyze 241 interferograms based on 43 ERS images acquired between 1992 and 2002. All interferograms have a high coherence due to arid conditions. Most of them show strong atmospheric artefacts. Tropospheric phase delays are estimated and corrected for each interferogram by analyzing the phase/elevation correlation. Corrections are validated using data from the ERA40 global atmospheric reanalysis. Corrected interferograms are inverted pixel by pixel to solve for the time series of ground motion in the lake area. Temporal smoothing is added to reduce random atmospheric artefacts. The observed deformation is nonlinear in time and spreads over a 50 x 50 km(2) area. We observe a 16 mm subsidence between 1995 and 1998 due to an 11 m water level increase, followed by an uplift due to the water level drop after 2000. We model the deformation, taking into account the loading history of the lake since 1935. A simple elastic model with parameters constrained by seismic wave velocities does not explain the amplitude of the observed motion. The two-layer viscoelastic model proposed by Kaufmann and Amelung (2000), with a mantle viscosity of 10(18) Pa s, adjusts well the data amplitude and its spatiotemporal shape.