Application of seismic diffraction imaging for detecting near-surface inhomogeneities in the Dead Sea area

Abstract

Detecting and mapping inhomogeneities localized near surface is an important problem in a variety of applications, such as engineering site investigation, environmental studies, archeology and others. Typical examples of such inhomogeneous objects are sinkholes, cavities, caves, tunnels, etc. Different geophysical techniques have been developed for this purpose. Among them a method utilizes the waves diffracted on, or scattered from, subsurface objects. The method was successfully applied to detect local heterogeneities related to sinkholes in the Dead Sea coast area.