Surface rupture and distributed deformation revealed by optical satellite imagery: The intraplate 2016 Mw 6.0 Petermann Ranges earthquake, Australia

Created 17/10/2025

Updated 17/10/2025

This investigation uses high-resolution optical satellite imagery to quantify vertical surface offsets associated with the intraplate 20 May 2016 Mw 6.0 Petermann Ranges earthquake, Northern Territory, Australia. The ~20 km long NW-trending rupture resulted from reverse motion on a northeast-dipping fault. We measure vertical surface offsets by differencing pre- and post-earthquake digital elevation models (DEMs) derived from in-track stereo Worldview images. This analysis resolves a maximum vertical deformation of 0.8 ? 0.2 m. We validate these results via comparison to field-based observations and interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR). This new method may be particularly useful for remote characterization of earthquake ruptures with larger (>1 m) vertical deformation, where near-rupture InSAR observations are often compromised by decorrelation.

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Title Surface rupture and distributed deformation revealed by optical satellite imagery: The intraplate 2016 Mw 6.0 Petermann Ranges earthquake, Australia
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/b333216e-75c8-462e-ae6c-c01881736ffb
Contact Point
Geoscience Australia Data
clientservices@ga.gov.au
Reference Period 08/04/2019
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
{
  "coordinates": [
    [
      [
        112.0,
        -44.0
      ],
      [
        154.0,
        -44.0
      ],
      [
        154.0,
        -9.0
      ],
      [
        112.0,
        -9.0
      ],
      [
        112.0,
        -44.0
      ]
    ]
  ],
  "type": "Polygon"
}
Data Portal Geoscience Australia

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Geoscience Australia "Surface rupture and distributed deformation revealed by optical satellite imagery: The intraplate 2016 Mw 6.0 Petermann Ranges earthquake, Australia". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/surface-rupture-and-distributed-deformation-revealed-by-optical-satellite-imagery-the-intraplat1