Ground Penetrating Radar Exploration Research Articles

Ground penetrating radar exploration at archaeological site in Shi Village, Xia County, Shanxi Province

With the rapid development of city construction, it’s necessary to make archaeological exploration process more convenient, efficient and undamaged. As a result, some geophysical methods begin to be used firstly to find anomaly roughly during exploration. Ground penetrating radar (GPR), as a non-destructive and high-resolution method, should be an effective method in relatively shallow archaeological exploration. To verify the effectiveness of GPR, this paper mainly discusses the application of a combining method of GPR and Luoyang Spade – a traditional archaeological method at pre-Qin period site in Shi Village, Xia County, Yuncheng City, Shanxi Province, used GPR to find the anomaly area, then used Luoyang Spade to excavate to verify. This method can greatly shorten exploration time and reduce damage of culture relics.

Mapping lateritic bauxite at Az Zabirah, Saudi Arabia, using ground-penetrating radar exploration method

This paper presents the three-dimensional (3D) data interpretation of a ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey, in conjunction with the existing boreholes, covering the area of the Az Zabirah bauxite deposits, northern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The purpose of this study was to measure and map the volume of the bauxite deposits in the selected survey area, as well as to prove the success of the ground-penetrating radar exploration method in detecting and mapping the bauxite layer. The 3D GPR data interpretation detected the bauxite layer at different depths and of variable thickness. The interpretation of the GPR profiles show three distinct layers, namely sandstone, upper clay, and bauxite of variable thicknesses. Each zone has a different reflection pattern or radar facies, which aided in their differentiation. The calculated total volume of bauxite in the study area from the GPR survey and borehole data was 34,696 m3 and 34,101 m3, respectively. The minor difference in the calculated volumes between the two datasets was approximately 1%.

The Use of Geophysical Prospections to Map Ancient Hydraulic Works: The Triglio Underground Aqueduct (Apulia, Southern Italy)

AbstractThis paper presents an integrated analysis using ground‐penetrating radar (GPR) and electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) studies to map the Triglio underground aqueduct that in Roman times supplied fresh water to the ancient town of Tarentum, modern Taranto, Apulia region, Italy. The study area includes an expansion project of a nearby limestone quarry where mining activity is related to the production of a steel factory (ILVA). The aim was to develop methods for detection and mapping of the geometry of the underground aqueduct. Seven GPR reflection profiles were acquired across and parallel to the hypothesized extent of the aqueduct, while the ERT method was used to understand the stratigraphy of the area and tie reflections to geological units.Well‐preserved vertical shafts for ventilation and inspection of the ancient underground hydraulic work were investigated and used as models for GPR exploration. The GPR profiles, interpreted using both the trace amplitude analysis and the forward modelling, showed reflection features from the main horizontal tunnel of the ancient aqueduct. The void space within the aqueduct, usually the ceiling–air interface, was discovered and mapped using reflections profiles both parallel to the linear feature, but also crossing it, and differentiated from similar looking geological features. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Sparsity-Promoted Blind Deconvolution of Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR) Data

Over the past decades, numerous efforts have been attempted to enhance the temporal resolution and accuracy of subsurface ground-penetrating radar (GPR) data by means of blind deconvolution techniques. The fact that most of the source wavelets that are utilized in practical GPR exploration are nonminimum phase presents some challenges for the blind deconvolution of GPR data. This letter extends the classical minimum entropy deconvolution strategy and forms a general-purpose framework of the blind deconvolution of GPR data, which formulates the blind deconvolution of GPR data as a sparsity-promoted optimization problem with a scale-invariant regularizer. Another contribution of this letter is that an alternating iterative method is explored to solve the derived nonconvex optimization problem, where the constraint of max <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">t</sub> |r(t)| = 1 is introduced to avoid trapping into some local minimums. Selected examples are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and robustness of the proposed methodology. Primary results show that by applying such approach to the GPR data, we obtain images with significantly enhanced temporal resolution compared with the results of existing blind deconvolution schemes.

Applicability of Ground Penetrating Radar Exploration Technique for the Diagnosis of Concrete Structures

Applicability of Ground Penetrating Radar Exploration Technique for the Diagnosis of Concrete Structures

Ground-penetrating radar exploration for ancient monuments at the Valley of Mummies -Kilo 6, Bahariya Oasis, Egypt

A Valley of Mummies was discovered recently by an Egyptian team at Bahariya Oasis, located about 380 km west of the pyramids. Four tombs were excavated, and inside them were found one hundred and five mummies (105), many of them beautifully gilded. These mummies, many sumptuously decorated with religious scenes, are the very best Roman-Period mummies ever found in Egypt. These remains are around 2000 years old, but they are in remarkable condition. A Ground-Penetrating Radar (GPR) had proved successful in detecting the cavities in resistive soil in which the mummies were found. The GPR survey conducted near the earlier-discovered tombs at Kilo-6 El-Bahariya to Farafra Oasis road is the focus of this paper. The GPR survey was conducted using the SIR-2000 attached to a 200 MHz monostatic antenna. The two areas to be surveyed were selected by the archaeologists in situ. Area one was 40 m × 40 m and Area two was 30 m × 15 m. A grid pattern survey in one direction; with one-meter profile spacing was done to both areas. In addition, a focusing survey was undertaken over the entire Area one. In addition, twenty long GPR profiles were conducted in an attempt to determine the outer, expected limits of the burial area. After the data acquisition, Reflex software was used for data processing and presentation. The final results of the radar survey: in the form of 2D radar records, time slices and 3D block diagrams; were used to guide the archaeologists during the excavation process. The excavation processes have been completed by the archaeologists, and many tombs and mummies were discovered. It is worthy to mention that, the excavations and location of tombs and cavities matched strongly with the GPR results.

An analysis of the multi-fold method for GPR exploration

Multi-fold technology is widely applied in seismic exploration as a method of enhancing useful signals and suppressing noise interference to greatly increase the signal to noise ratio (S/N). The authors introduce it to ground-penetrating radar (GPR) surveys and compare the experimental results to the conventional profiling method to demonstrate the feasibility and advantages of the technique for GPR exploration. Based on the experimental data, the authors summarize the GPR wave propagation rules and the parameters of multi-fold acquisition and processing. It is proven to be a useful attempt to enrich the GPR survey technology.

Ground-Penetrating Radar Exploration of Alluvial Fans in the Southern Blue Ridge Province, North Carolina

Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) was used to explore alluvial-fan complexes on the piedmont slopes of higher mountains in the Blue Ridge province of North Carolina. On young fans with relatively unweathered surfaces, GPR penetration reached 16 m with 100 MHz antennae and 25 m with 25 MHz antennae. Penetration appears to be deepest near fan apexes. As the fans are composed mainly of bouldery debris flow deposits, the internal structures revealed by GPR profiles are few. The typical profile has a chaotic appearance and is composed of numerous discontinuous reflectors with varying dips and diffraction hyperbolas produced by boulders. On old abandoned fans that have been subjected to intense weathering, boulders in the deposits have decomposed and structures subparallel to the surface are more likely to be seen. Continuous reflectors that may indicate contacts between depositional units, buried soils, or groundwater tables, however, are rare in both kinds of fans. Generally radar velocity and penetration are greatest on young fans, less on old fans, and least on saprolite.