• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.39 no.4 s.179
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• pp.441-450
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• 2006

The on-land seismic survey in Korea was begun in mid-1960s. Kim et al.(1967) of Korea Geological Survey reported on the result of gravity and seismic reflection surveys conducted in the Pohang area for the period of 1963-64 to assess its possibility of oil entrapment. Hyun and Kim (1966) carried out a refraction survey on the tunnel wall. Since then, the KGS geophysicists had conducted seismic surveys on Kyungsang sedimentary basin as a main project for several years. In 1970s, on-land seismic surveys had been conducted for various purposes such as site investigation for the nuclear power plants and industrial complex, exploration for ground water, mineral resources and underground tunnel. The first reflection survey with CMP acquisition was attempted in 1978 by using a digital recording system. But most of on-land seismic surveys had employed the refraction method until 1980s. In 1990s, high resolution reflection and various borehole seismic surveys such as tomography, uphole, downhole, cross-hole methods have been attempted by universities and engineering companies. The applications of on-land seismic surveys have been enlarged for both academic and industrial purposes such as investigation of geologic structure of the fault and tidal flat area, construction of highway, railroad and dam, geothermal energy and mineral resource exploration, environmental assessment for waste disposal sites and archaeological investigations. In 2002, the first crustal seismic survey was carried out on the profile of 294km length across the whole peninsular. It is expected that the advanced technology and experience acquired through offshore seismic surveys, which have been conducted in continental shelf of Korea and foreign oil fields, will stimulate the more active on-land seismic explorations.