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Article history: Near-surface seismic refraction and surface wave data were collected at a site to determine the feasibility and
Received 23 May 2013 limitations of using these seismic methods to detect and localize a shallow tunnel in unconsolidated sediments.
Accepted 17 October 2013 Data sets were collected both before and after the construction of the tunnel. We were able to detect the air-lled
Available online 26 October 2013
cavity using multichannel analysis of surface waves. The refraction tomography results showed the tunnel
location in the raypath coverage plots, but only small velocity variations were observed. In tandem the two
Keywords:
Near-surface
methods would reduce false positives, but individually the false alarm rate would likely be high due to non-
Seismic uniqueness of the results. In this geologic setting, these methods are not the best choice of geophysical methods
Refraction to detect clandestine tunnels and should be combined with other geophysical techniques to improve and
Surface wave constrain interpretations.
Void 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
0926-9851/$ see front matter 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jappgeo.2013.10.004
S.D. Sloan et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 99 (2013) 6065 61
Table 1
Summary of the seismic acquisition parameters for the different lines collected.
Pre-construction
Refraction (P) 0.25 m 0.5 m 144 100-Hz Hammer
Refraction (S) 0.25 m 0.5 m 144 14.5-Hz Hammer
Post-construction
Refraction (P) 0.25 m 0.5 m 144 40-Hz Hammer
Refraction (S) 0.25 m 0.5 m 144 14.5-Hz Hammer
MASW 1m 1m 96 4.5-Hz Weight drop
Fig. 1. Picture of the tunnel used in this study during construction.
62 S.D. Sloan et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 99 (2013) 6065
Fig. 3. Representative overtone image and interpreted fundamental mode dispersion curve (indicated by the line with white squares) for the MASW line.
The data were processed using commercial software packages, 4. Results and discussion
including SurfSeis 3 and Rayfract. The refraction data were processed
by inputting raw eld les, dening geometry, and picking the rst The pre- and post-construction ray coverage plots for the P- and
arrivals for each shot. There are a total of 13,392 time-offset pairs from S-wave data are displayed in Figs. 4a and 5a, respectively. The pre-
144 rst arrival picks on each of 93 different shot locations. The cell and post-construction VP and VS proles are shown in Figs. 4b and 5b,
size used was 12.5 cm on each side, for a total of 100 cells representing top and bottom, respectively. The void is located at 19 m along the
the tunnel. The surface wave data processing included geometry deni- x-axis in Fig. 4 and 17.5 m in Fig. 5, with the top at approximately 3-m
tion, overtone analysis, manual picking of fundamental mode dispersion depth (the center of the dashed circle). The lateral discrepancy in the
curves (Fig. 3), and inverting the dispersion curves to calculate shear- void location between the P and S data sets is due to the monument
wave velocity. In-depth explanations on the theory and processing for used as a reference point for positioning the lines being accidentally
MASW and refraction tomography can be found in Park et al. (1999), dislodged between the collections of the pre-construction P- and
Xia et al. (1999), and Sheehan et al. (2005). All source and receiver loca- S-wave lines. VP remains relatively constant from pre- to post-
tions were used for the refraction analysis; however, the surface wave construction; however, there is a slight decrease in the post-
eld les were cut to mimic an off-end conguration with constant construction VP where the void is located, dropping from approximately
source-to-receiver offset. We chose a 1-m offset with a 24-channel 550 m/s to 450 m/s. The VP proles exhibit a change in velocity of
spread in this case after testing various parameters. approximately 22% when comparing the before and after. VS drops
Fig. 4. P-wave velocity proles (right) and ray coverage proles (left) produced by the seismic refraction tomography surveys. The top proles are pre-construction velocity and the
bottom proles are post-construction. There is a slight decrease in velocity and change in raypath coverage after construction of the void. The middle of the circle indicates the position
of the tunnel.
S.D. Sloan et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 99 (2013) 6065 63
Fig. 5. S-wave velocity proles (right) and ray coverage proles (left) produced by the seismic refraction tomography surveys. The top proles are pre-construction and the bottom proles
are post-construction. There is a slight decrease in velocity and change in raypath coverage after construction of the void. The middle of the circle indicates the position of the tunnel.
from approximately 400 to 325 m/s, which is a 23% change. Intuitively marking a 41% change. In this example, the raypath coverage plot
we expected a greater change in the S-wave data compared to the does the best job of highlighting the inuence of the void and presents
P-wave data, but the percent change is very similar. Although both the a noticeable contrast in both the P- and S-wave data. Both pre- and
P-and S-wave results show changes greater than 20%, seismic velocity post-construction plots are comparable, containing similar features in
variations of that scale are not uncommon in the shallow subsurface. both. The contrast between the surrounding medium and the void
Even within a short ~35-m long line there are changes equal to or would become even more pronounced in an environment with higher
greater than those observed at the tunnel location and do not appear seismic velocities.
anomalous. Fig. 6 shows difference plots calculated by subtracting the post-
The left-hand side of Figs. 4 and 5(a) shows raypath coverage plots construction grid les from those of the pre-construction. The difference
for the pre- and post-construction cases (top and bottom, respectively) in ray coverage is on the top and velocity is on the bottom. P-wave data
for the P- and S-wave data. Seismic waves propagate in accordance with are on the left in Fig. 6a and S-wave data are on the right in Fig. 6b. As
Fermat's principle of least time, so it is expected that fewer rays pass with the pre- and post-comparison plots, the change in ray coverage is
through the void area due to the decreased velocity. This response is the most evident, indicated by the areas within the dashed circles. The
expected since the excavation of geologic material has left behind an high events to the left of the void location and the low events beneath
air-lled void with a velocity of approximately 335 m/s, which is less it in the P-wave data are not representative of the void, but are a
than that of the surrounding medium. Comparing the before and after byproduct of the differencing where the rays have traveled around the
plots in Fig. 4 shows a decrease in the number of rays from ~1400 to void location. The velocity difference plot shows minor changes in the
600, representing a decrease of 57% in the P-wave data. The raypath velocity where the tunnel is located, but nothing that sticks out anoma-
coverage of the S-wave data drops from approximately 1780 to 730, lously compared to the surroundings.
Fig. 6. Difference plots for ray coverage (top) and velocity (bottom), calculated by subtracting the post-construction data from the pre-construction data for the P- (left) and S-wave (right)
data. The middle of the circle indicates the position of the tunnel.
64 S.D. Sloan et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 99 (2013) 6065
Fig. 8. Plots showing the change in velocity (left) and ray coverage (right) for decimated source/receiver spacing combinations of 0.5-m/0.25-m (a, f), 0.5-m/0.5-m (b, g), 1.0-m/1.0-m
(c, h), 1.0-m/2.0-m (d, i), and 2.0-m/2.0-m (e, j). The middle of the circle indicates the position of the tunnel.
S.D. Sloan et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 99 (2013) 6065 65
the parameters used to acquire the MASW data. In that regard, a single the same techniques to deeper targets to determine depth limitations
data set collected with these parameters could be used for both refrac- in similar environments.
tion tomography and MASW.
In this study the MASW and raypath coverage plots were the most Acknowledgments
indicative of the tunnel location. The refraction velocity plots show
subtle changes in velocity that can be attributed to the void; however, The authors wish to thank Ron Elliston, Kenny Mclaughlin, and Ryan
these small variations would not serve as a suitable indicator of a Strange for assistance in the eld and the reviewers for their construc-
subsurface anomaly independently without previous knowledge of tive edits and suggestions.
the location and depth of the tunnel and are not anomalous with respect
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