The earthquake in L’Aquila, Italy, has changed the lay of the land, according to blended satellite imagery from the European Space Agency. Geologists used the images to identify the fault line that caused the 6 April earthquake and its aftershocks, which so far have killed 294 people according to an AP report.

Italian research groups have released three images created by blending radar satellite data taken before and after the earthquake. The images, called interferograms, show changes in the distance from the observing satellite to the ground. This means they can only detect displacement along the axis to the satellite, so the Italian team used ground-based GPS stations in the region to confirm their findings, which indicate that the ground has moved as much as 25 cm in some places.

The scientists, from the Istituto per il Rilevamento Elettromagnetico dell’ Ambiente (IREA-CNR) in Naples and the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) in Rome, have released their data on an ESA website.

The technique was first used to study the 1992 Landers earthquake in California, says geologist Philip England of the University of Oxford in the UK. “We still haven’t accumulated a big enough archive of these…normally each time you look at one of these earthquake [interferograms] you learn something new.”

An easy-to-follow resource is at the Centre for Observation and Modelling of Earthquakes and Tectonics.

Bigger images here:

Photos: IREA-CNR, INGV, INGV/ASI (Italian Space Agency)