Detection and Monitoring of Surface Motions in Active Open Pit Iron Mine in the Amazon Region, Using Persistent Scatterer Interferometry with TerraSAR-X Satellite Data

Abstract

Persistent Scatterer interferometry (PSI) represents a powerful tool for the detection and monitoring of tiny surface deformations in vast areas, allowing a better understanding of its triggering mechanisms, planning of mitigation measures, as well as to find better solutions for social and environmental issues. However, there is no record hitherto of its use in active open pit mine in tropical rainforest environment. In this paper we evaluate the use of the PSI technique for the detection and monitoring of mine slope deformations in the N4W iron mine and its surroundings, Pará State, Northern Brazil. The PSI processing was performed with 18 ascending SAR scenes of the TerraSAR-X satellite acquired in the dry season of 2012. The results showed a significant number of widely distributed persistent scatterers. It was observed that most of the study area was stable during the time span. Nevertheless, high deformation rates (312 mm/year) were mapped over the mine waste piles, but do not offer any hazard, since they are expected displacements of meters in magnitude for these manmade land structures. Additionally, it was mapped tiny deformation rates in both the east and west flanks of pits 1 and 2. The main underlying reasons can be assigned to the accommodation phenomena of very poor rock masses, to the local geometric variations of the slope cuts, to the geological contact between ironstones and the country rocks, to the exploitation activities, as well as to the OPEN ACCESS Remote Sens. 2013, 5 4720 major geological structures. This study showed the applicability of the PSI technique using TerraSAR-X scenes in active open pit mines in tropical moist environment. However, the PSI technique is not capable in providing real-time warnings, and faces limitations due to SAR viewing geometry. In this sense, we strongly recommend the use of radar scenes acquired in both ascending and descending orbits, which would also provide a more complete understanding of the deformation patterns.

Autonomous Navigation Airborne Forward-Looking SAR High Precision Imaging with Combination of Pseudo-Polar Formatting and Overlapped Sub-Aperture Algorithm

“…The Ground Based SAR (GBSAR) system is widely used for slope area and glacier deformation monitoring for its low de-correlation compared with space-borne data [23][24][25][26][27]. Fortunately, the Ground Based SAR (GBSAR) system possesses the same imaging geometry with the airborne forward-looking SAR.…”

Monitoring of ground movement in open pit iron mines of Carajás Province (Amazon region) based on A-DInSAR techniques using TerraSAR-X data

“…[16][17][18][19][20] This study presents an application of A-DInSAR techniques for monitoring surface deformation in a large area of extent with several open pit iron mines located in Carajás Mineral Province (Brazilian Amazon region). In the next section, a description of this particular mining area, as well as some related ground deformation instabilities, is presented.…”

Deriving Dynamic Subsidence of Coal Mining Areas Using InSAR and Logistic Model

“…The potential of time-series interferometric synthetic aperture radar (TS-InSAR) techniques, such as the persistent scatterer interferometry and the small baseline subset technique, have been investigated for measuring ground surface time-series deformation caused by mining activities [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. However, these studies have mainly focused on abandoned coal mines, salt mines, iron ore areas, etc., where slow deformation (e.g., on the order of several or dozens of millimeters per year) happens, on the basis of a linear deformation model (i.e., mean velocity).…”