Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 254 (2013) 1–4

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Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research

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Short communication

dMODELS: A MATLAB software package for modeling crustal deformation near active
faults and volcanic centers
Maurizio Battaglia a, b,⁎, Peter F. Cervelli c, Jessica R. Murray d
a
Volcano Science Center, USGS, 345 Middlefield Rd, Menlo Park CA 94025, United States
b
Department of Earth Science, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
c
California Volcano Observatory, USGS, 345 Middlefield Rd, Menlo Park, CA 94025, United States
d
Earthquake Hazards Program, 345 Middlefield Rd, Menlo Park, CA 94025, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: We have developed a MATLAB software package for the most common models used to interpret deformation
Received 18 October 2012 measurements near faults and active volcanic centers. The emphasis is on analytical models of deformation
Accepted 26 December 2012 that can be compared with data from the Global Positioning System (GPS), InSAR, tiltmeters and strainmeters.
Available online 31 December 2012
Source models include pressurized spherical, ellipsoidal and sill-like magma chambers in an elastic, homoge-
neous, flat half-space. Dikes and faults are described following the mathematical notation for rectangular dislo-
Keywords:
Crustal deformation
cations in an elastic, homogeneous, flat half-space. All the expressions have been checked for typographical
Volcano geodesy errors that might have been present in the original literature, extended to include deformation and strain within
MATLAB the Earth's crust (as opposed to only the Earth's surface) and verified against finite element models. A set of GPS
Pressure source measurements from the 2006 eruption at Augustine Volcano (Alaska) is used to test the software package. The
Augustine volcano results show that the best fit source to the GPS data is a spherical intrusion ( ΔV ¼ 5  10−4 km3), about
880 m beneath the volcano's summit.
© 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction introduction on modeling earthquake and volcano deformation, the

Precise measurements of ground deformation have become in-
creasingly common as large networks of Global Positioning System
(GPS) receivers and borehole strainmeters have been established
over the past decade. Complementing this continuous record are
comparatively infrequent but spatially dense images of ground defor-
mation from radar satellites and a long historical record of leveling,
Electronic Distance Meter, triangulation, and tilt data. Deformation
can arise from tectonic and volcanic forces and from human activities,
such as subsurface fluid withdrawal. Mathematical models of how the
crust deforms in response to different physical processes are required
to characterize driving processes and constrain source location, size,
orientation, and strength. This information is valuable for hazards
forecasting and mitigation, assessment of anthropogenic environ-
mental impact, land use planning, and other applications.
dMODEL is a MATLAB-based software package, developed as a prac-
tical, working tool for geoscientists interested in applying mathematical
modeling to investigate volcano and earthquake deformation. A general
understanding of the concepts and calculus behind the models is
recommended to enhance the application of the models. For an
⁎ Corresponding author at: Volcano Science Center, USGS, MS 910, 345 Middlefield Rd,
Menlo Park, CA 94025, United States. Tel.: +1 650 329 5129; fax: +1 650 329 5203.
E-mail address: mbattaglia@usgs.gov (M. Battaglia).
reader is referred to Segall (2010), while references cited in Section 2.1
provide a background on coordinate systems and datums. As a compan-
ion to the software package, the U.S. Geological Survey has published a
paper with detailed introduction to the mathematics of each model
(Battaglia et al., 2013). Most of the models are taken from other credited
or standard sources, but we have derived or re-formatted a number of
equations. All formulas have been checked for typographical errors
existing in the original references and confirmed against numerical
models (COULOMB 3, earthquake.usgs.gov/research/modeling/coulomb
and COMSOL Multyphysics, www.comsol.com). The manual and the
MATLAB scripts are open source and intended for teaching and research.
If any of the scripts are used in research submitted for publication, we
ask only that authors cite the USGS publication (Battaglia et al., 2013)
and this paper.
2. Features and capabilities
A key assumption behind geodetic monitoring of volcanoes and
earthquakes is that deformation of the Earth's surface reflects tectonic
and volcanic processes at depth (e.g., fault slip and/or mass transport)
transmitted to the surface through the mechanical properties of the
crust (Dzurisin, 2003). We implemented several analytical models
in our software package dMODELS to fit and interpret such deforma-
tion (see Table 1). Analytical models offer a closed-form description
of the source of crustal deformation. This means that, in principle,

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2 M. Battaglia et al. / Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 254 (2013) 1–4

we may readily infer the relative importance of any of the source pa-
rameters. Although analytical models are based on a number of sim-
plifications (e.g., the assumption that the crust is a homogenous,
isotropic, elastic flat half-space) that make the set of differential
equations describing the problem tractable, they can take into ac-
count a vast array of source geometries. The careful use of analytical
models, together with high quality data sets, can yield valuable in-
sights into the nature of the deformation source(s).
The dMODELS software package provides MATLAB functions and
scripts to (1) compute internal and surface deformation, internal
and surface strain, and surface tilt due to a pressurized source or rect-
angular dislocation in a homogenous, isotropic, elastic, flat half-space,
and (2) invert GPS data for spherical, spheroidal and sill-like pressure
sources. Although we test the software on GPS measurements from
the 2006 unrest at Augustine volcano (Alaska), the models can be
used for sources other than volcanic or tectonic (e.g., groundwater
withdrawal or pressure changes in hydrothermal aquifers; e.g.,
Battaglia et al., 2006).
2.1. Basic geodesy
Geographic coordinates can be expressed using various datums,
all related to one another through geometrical transformations
(Hoffmann-Wellenhof et al., 1997). A geodetic datum describes the
size and shape of the Earth (coordinate system) and the origin, orien-
tation and time derivatives of the coordinate system (DMA, 1989;
NIMA, 2000, 2004). Common examples include:
1. global Cartesian (XYZ) system: International Terrestrial Reference
Frame 2005 (ITRF05)
2. global geographic (Latitude, Longitude, Height — LLH) system: In-
ternational Terrestrial Reference Frame 2000 (ITRF00 — WGS 84
ellipsoid)
3. local Cartesian (XY) system: Universal Transverse Mercator coor-
dinate system (UTM — WGS 84 ellipsoid).
Modeling deformation from GPS requires the transformation of
the original ITRF coordinates into an ellipsoidal geographical coordi-
nate system (LLH) or local Cartesian (XY) coordinates (e.g., UTM).
The dMODELS software package provides algorithms to transform
coordinates from (1) International Terrestrial Reference Frames 2005
to 2000 (ITRF05 to ITRF00), (2) International Terrestrial Reference
Frame to Latitude, Longitude, Height (ITRF to LLH), (3) Latitude, Lon-
gitude to Cartesian (LL to UTM), and (4) Global International Terres-
trial Reference Frame to local East, North, Up coordinates (ITRF to
ENU) and vice versa.
2.2. Spherical source
Surface deformation due to an expanding or contracting magma
chamber has frequently been modeled by a dilatation point source
in an elastic half space (the so-called Mogi's source). The dMODELS
software package implements the more general model for a finite
(pressurized) spherical source proposed by McTigue (1987). The
model simulates a small spherical source embedded in a homoge-
neous, isotropic, elastic, flat half-space. The solution for a spherical
source depends on four parameters: the dimensionless pressure
change ΔP=μ (where μ is the shear modulus) and the source location
and depth (x0,y0,z0). McTigue's (1987) formulation provides an ana-
lytical solution that includes higher-order terms taking into account
the finite shape of a spherical body; thus, the local stresses at, and
away from, the boundary of a chamber can be calculated (unlike the
point source case).
2.3. Prolate spheroid
A simple model of an active volcanic system might include two
principal elements: a magma reservoir and a conduit through which
magma may reach the surface. When the volcano is quiescent the
conduit will close, allowing a pressure build in the reservoir. Yang
et al. (1988) formulated an approximate solution for a dipping pro-
late ellipsoid in an elastic half-space using half-space double force
and center of dilatation solutions. The solution for a prolate spheroid
depends on seven parameters: the dimensionless pressure change
ΔP=μ, the geometric aspect ratio A = b/a between the semi-major
axis a and the semi-minor axis b, the source location (x0,y0,z0), the
dip angle θ (measured from the free surface) and the azimuth angle
ϕ (measured clockwise from the positive North direction). The
dMODELS software package implements Yang et al. (1988) model
for a finite (pressurized) spheroidal source with the corrections
reported in Newman et al. (2006).
2.4. Sill-like source
A simple 3-D model of a horizontal sill-like intrusion is a horizontal
penny-shaped crack in a semi-infinite elastic body (Fialko et al., 2001).
The solution for a horizontal penny-shaped crack depends on five param-
eters: the dimensionless pressure change ΔP=μ, the crack radius b and the
source location and depth (x0,y0,z0). The dMODELS software package im-
plements the approximate expressions of Fialko et al. (2001) for a hori-
zontal sill. These are appropriate for a horizontal sill-like source whose
radius is up to five times larger than its depth.
2.5. Rectangular dislocation (dikes and faults)
The dMODELS software package implements the complete suite of
closed analytical expressions for the internal and surface displace-
ments and tilts due to a strike-slip, dip-slip or tensile rectangular dis-
location (and their combination) as proposed by Okada (1985, 1992).
These expressions are particularly compact and free from singular
points. They can be used to model deformation related to fault slip
as well as the intrusion of rectangular dikes.

Table 1 2.6. Discretized faults and smoothing operator

List of earthquake and volcano deformation sources.

Model Source type Reference

Basic geodesy
Volcano source
Sphere
Prolate spheroid
Penny-shaped crack
Tensile dislocation
Earthquake source
Single rectangular
dislocation
Superposition of rectangular
dislocations
Fault slip is generally not uniform over a fault surface, but instead
varies in magnitude over the extent of the fault, or dike. The observed
Hoffmann-Wellenhof et al.
surface deformation can be used to solve for spatially variable slip on
(1997)
fault planes by discretizing the model faults into evenly sized dislocations
Magma chamber McTigue (1987) (or tiles). Fault tiles in the model may or may not slip (e.g., Jonsson et al.,
Conduit Yang et al. (1988) 2002). If we fix the fault geometry parameters, we can write the observed
Sill Fialko et al. (2001)
surface displacements d as a linear function of the fault slip s
Dike Okada (1985, 1992)
Dip and strike Okada (1985, 1992) Wd ¼ WGs; ð1Þ
slip fault
Composite faults e.g. Jonsson et al. (2002) where W is the weight matrix from the Cholesky decomposition of the
data covariance matrix (WTW=Σ−1), d is the data vector of surface
 M. Battaglia et al. / Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 254 (2013) 1–4 3

Table 2
Best fit to GPS data from Augustine Volcano.

Source Statistics Parameters

χv2 Np v Fexp Fth [0.01] X Y Depth Radius A Dip Strike ΔV

(m) (m) (m) (m) (°) (°) (m3)

Sphere (*) 1.55 4 14 174 −182 879 5.6 × 105

Spheroid 1.47 7 11 1.3 6.2 135 −135 613 0.09 24 282 4.0 × 105
Sill-like 1.86 5 13 −18 −142 614 106 3.4 × 105

(*) Best fit source. Source location (X, Y) is relative to the vent.

displacements, and G is a matrix of data kernels (e.g., Green's functions
from Okada, 1985, 1992) which depend on the assumed model geometry
parameters and relate the surface displacement to the model.
To regularize the generally underdetermined inversion for fault
slip we can smooth the solution by minimizing the two-dimensional
second derivative (Laplacian) of the fault slip. We include the
smoothing by solving the following system of coupled equations
    distinct, increase in seismicity, which began in May 2005 (Cervelli
Wd WG
¼ 2 s;
0 κ D
where the Lagrange multiplier κ 2 determines the weight put on
smoothing (relative to fitting the data) and D is a second-order finite
difference operator such that ∇ 2s = Ds.
The dMODELS software package implements analytical solutions
that relate surface displacements to offsets across many small rectan-
gular dislocations and the corresponding smoothing operator D.
3. Unrest at Augustine volcano
Augustine Volcano, in the lower Cook Inlet (275 km southwest of
Anchorage, Alaska), is a 1260-m-high dacitic stratovolcano consisting
of a central dome complex, lava flows, and pyroclastic (Waitt and
Begèt, 2009). On January 11, 2006, the volcano erupted after nearly
20 years of quiescence. No deformation had been observed at Augus-
tine since the 1986 eruption until renewed unrest began in early
summer 2005. Continuous GPS instrumentation at Augustine mea-
sured clear precursory deformation consistent with a source of infla-
tion or pressurization beneath the volcano's summit at a depth of
around sea level. The deformation was accompanied by a subtle, but
et al., 2006).
ð2Þ
To uniquely determine the geometry of the intrusion, we jointly
inverted the GPS horizontal and vertical deformation velocities mea-
sured between June 2005 and January 28, 2006 (see Table 1 from
Cervelli et al., 2006), using a weighted least-square algorithm with a
random search grid. Measurement errors are coded in the covariance
matrix and the penalty function χv2 is the chi-square per degrees of
freedom. The minimum of the penalty function χv2 is determined
using the interior-point algorithm (MathWorks, 2012, pp. 6–38).
We test three source geometries: a spherical source (McTigue,
1987), a prolate spheroid (Yang et al., 1988), and a horizontal
penny-shaped source (Fialko et al., 2001), all in an elastic, homoge-
neous, isotropic half-space.
The details of several models obtained by inversion of the data are
listed in Table 2.

Fig. 1. Observed (red arrows; Cervelli et al., 2006) and predicted (white arrows) GPS deformation velocities. The yellow circle gives the location of the spherical source. The pre-
dicted velocity at AUGL is too small to be clearly visible in this figure.
4 M. Battaglia et al. / Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research 254 (2013) 1–4
We compare the proposed models by performing F-tests
(e.g., Battaglia and Hill, 2009) on the residual χv2. To test if the reduction
in χv2 is greater than would be expected simply because additional
model parameters were added, the statistics
  
χ 2v Sphere vSphere −χ 2v X vX = NpX −NpSphere
F ðNp Þ;vx ¼
x −NpSphere
χ 2v X
is used, where X indicates the prolate spheroid or sill-like source, v are
the degrees of freedom, and Np the number of source parameters (4
for a sphere, 5 for a sill and 7 for a prolate spheroid). This statistic is
expected to be F (right-tailored) distributed with NpX − NpSphere versus
vX degrees of freedom. The experimental value of F is compared to a ref-
erence value with less than a 1% probability of being exceeded by
chance. If the experimental value exceeds the reference value, then
there is a 99% probability that the null-hypothesis is violated. In
Table 2, we use the spherical model (which has the fewest parameters)
as our null hypothesis (a spherical source is the best-fit model). Table 2
gives values of χv2, number of model parameters Np, degrees of freedom
v, and experimental and theoretical values of F for each source. The sta-
tistics shows that a sphere is a much better fit to the GPS data than the
sill-like source because the sill-like source has larger values of Np and χv2
than the spherical source. The prolate spheroid has a smaller value of χv2
than the spherical source but also has 3 additional geometrical param-
eters. The experimental value of F3,11 is 1.3, much less than the theoret-
ical value 6.2. This means that the improvement in fit of the prolate
spheroid is not significant and the statistics are consistent with a sphere
being the best fit to the GPS deformation velocities (Fig. 1).
4. Software availability
Interested scientists can download the software package (a single
zipped file) and manual from the USGS publications Web page
(pubs.usgs.gov/tm/tm13b1/) or can contact M. Battaglia (mbattaglia@
usgs.gov). MATLAB is not required to run the optimization scripts tested
in this paper. These scripts have been compiled for 32- and 64-bit CPUs
and can run on any Windows-based PC. The zipped file also includes all
the data and input used to test the software. MATLAB Main Module and
Optimization toolbox are required to open, run and modify any of the
functions available in dMODELS.
Acknowledgments
Comments from M. Poland (U.S. Geological Survey), D. Dzurisin
(U.S. Geological Survey) and A. Geyer greatly helped to improve the
original manuscript.
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