Selected radar images of man-made underground galleries

Abstract

Ground-penetrating radar (GPR), as a high-resolution geophysical prospecting method, has proved to be a very useful tool in archaeological site investigations, especially in the detection and identification of tunnels and galleries. This work shows seven selected profiles collected at four different archaeological sites in Spain and Mexico, with a wide variety of targets, not only in terms of their size (from 1 × 1 m to 3 × 4 m) but also in their depth (from 0.5 to 7 m). In all, 14 galleries and/or tunnels were detected. The approach to these studies was organized in two ways: firstly the presence of a known subsoil was used to compare the response of different antennae looking for these kinds of targets; secondly, GPR was used to find unknown historical galleries before any excavation took place. The equipment used in these studies were the SIR-8, with 120 and 500 MHz monostatic antennae, and PulseEkko IV, with 100 MHz bistatic antennae. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.