• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.132-142
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• 2009

The Tamar rift valley runs through the City of Launceston, Tasmania. Damage has occurred to city buildings due to earthquake activity in Bass Strait. The presence of the ancient valley, the Tamar valley, in-filled with soft sediments that vary rapidly in thickness from 0 to 250mover a few hundreds metres, is thought to induce a 2D resonance pattern, amplifying the surface motions over the valley and in Launceston. Spatially averaged coherency (SPAC), frequency-wavenumber (FK) and horizontal to vertical spectrum ratio (HVSR) microtremor survey methods are combined to identify and characterise site effects over the Tamar valley. Passive seismic array measurements acquired at seven selected sites were analysed with SPAC to estimate shear wave velocity (slowness) depth profiles. SPAC was then combined with HVSR to improve the resolution of these profiles in the sediments to an approximate depth of 125 m. Results show that sediments thicknesses vary significantly throughout Launceston. The top layer is composed of as much as 20m of very soft Quaternary alluvial sediments with a velocity from 50 m/s to 125 m/s. Shear-wave velocities in the deeper Tertiary sediment fill of the Tamar valley, with thicknesses from 0 to 250m vary from 400 m/s to 750 m/s. Results obtained using SPAC are presented at two selected sites (GUN and KPK) that agree well with dispersion curves interpreted with FK analysis. FK interpretation is, however, limited to a narrower range of frequencies than SPAC and seems to overestimate the shear wave velocity at lower frequencies. Observed HVSR are also compared with the results obtained by SPAC, assuming a layered earth model, and provide additional constraints on the shear wave slowness profiles at these sites. The combined SPAC and HVSR analysis confirms the hypothesis of a layered geology at the GUN site and indicates the presence of a 2D resonance pattern across the Tamar valley at the KPK site.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.1-20
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• 1995

A train overturn accident occurred on March 1993 in the Gupo area, northern part of Pusan, unfortunately had taken a heavy toll of lives and caused a great loss of property as well. The reasons for the subsidence of the basement under the railroads, which presumed to be the main cause of the accident, have been investigated from many different angles, including conventional geotechnical investigation methods. The deduced nuin reasons of the subsidence were: 1. blasting for tunnel excavation (NATM) at about 39 meter under the railroads, and 2. unexpected change of bedrock conditions along the direction of tunnel. But this accident was derived nrranlv from the lack of geological and geotechnical information under railroad area because it was impossible to drill beneath the railroads. This paper introduces a new geophysical survey techniqueseisrnic geotomography, and shows some results of the method applying to investigate the underground structure of the accident area. This method not only overcomes the unfavourable environment which many conventional investigation methods cannot face, but produces an image of underground structure with high resolution. Furthermore, the outputs from geotomogaphic analysis could provide very valuable in-situ basic parameters (like seismic velocities, elastic moduli, etc.) which is essential to the design and construction.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.145-153
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• 2013

High-resolution chirp profiles were analyzed to investigate the echo types of near-surface sediments in the Yellow Sea off the Baegryeong Island. On the basis of seafloor morphology and subbottom echo characters, 7 echo types were identified. Flat seafloor with no internal reflectors or moderately to well-developed subbottom reflectors (echo type 1-1 and 1-2) is mainly distributed in the southern part of the study area. Flat seafloor with superposed wavy bedforms (echo type 1-3) is also distributed in the middle part. Mounded seafloor with either smooth surface or superposed bedforms (echo type 2-1, 2-2, and 2-3) occurs in the middle part of the study area. Irregular and eroded seafloor with no subbottom reflectors (echo type 3-1) is present in the northern part of the study area off the Baegryeong Island. According to the distribution pattern and sedimentary facies of echo types, depositional environments can be divided into three distinctive areas: (1) active erosional zone due to strong tidal currents in the northern part; (2) formation of tidal sand ridges in response to tidal currents associated with sea-level rise distributed in the middle part; and (3) transgressive sand sheets in the southern part. Such a depositional pattern, including 7 echo types, in this area reflects depositional process related to the sea-level rise and strong tidal currents during the Holocene transgression.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2001.03a
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• pp.167-174
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• 2001

Reflection method using ultrasonic source has been attempted to obtain the information about tunnel lining structures composed of lining, shotcrete, water barrier and voids at the back of lining. In this work, two different types of sources, i.e. single-pulse source and sweep source, can be used. Single-pulse source with short time duration has the frequency content whose amplitudes tend to be concentrated around the dominant frequency, whereas sweep source with long time duration denotes a flat distribution of relatively larger amplitude over a broad frequency band, although the peak to peak amplitude of single-pulse source wavelet is equivalent to that of sweep source one. In traditional seismic application, a single-pulse source(weight drop, dynamite) is typically used. However, to investigate the fine structure, as it is the case in the tunnel lining structure, the sweep wavelet can be also a desirable source waveform primarily due to the higher energy over a broad frequency band. For the investigation purposes of sweep source, a physical modeling is a useful tool, especially to study problems of wave propagation in the fine layered media. The main purpose of this work was using a physical modeling technique to explore the applicability of sweep source to the delineation of inner layer boundaries. To this end, a two-dimensional physical model analogous to the lining structure was built and a special ultrasonic sweep source was devised. The measurements were carried out in the sweep frequency range 10 ∼ 60 KHz, as peformed in the regular reflection survey(e.g. roll-along technique). The measured data were further rearranged with a proper software (cross-correlation). The resulting seismograms(raw data) showed quitely similar features to those from a single-pulse source, in which high frequency content of reflection events could be considerably emphasized, as expected. The data were further processed by using a regular data processing system "FOCUS" and the results(stack section) were well associated with the known model structure. In this context, it is worthy to note that in view of measuring condition the sweep source would be applied to benefit the penetration of high frequency energy into the media and to enhance the resolution of reflection events.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.25-30
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• 1998

Time-lapse crosswell seismic data, recorded before and after the cavity filling, showed that the filling increased the velocity at a known cavity zone in an old mine site in Inchon area. The seismic response depicted on the tomogram and in conjunction with the geologic data from drillings imply that the size of the cavity may be either small or filled by debris. In this study, I attempted to evaluate the filling effect by analyzing velocity measured from the time-lapse tomograms. The data acquired by a downhole airgun and 24-channel hydrophone system revealed that there exists measurable amounts of source statics. I presented a methodology to estimate the source statics. The procedure for this method is: 1) examine the source firing-time for each source, and remove the effect of irregular firing time, and 2) estimate the residual statics caused by inaccurate source positioning. This proposed multi-step inversion may reduce high frequency numerical noise and enhance the resolution at the zone of interest. The multi-step inversion with different starting models successfully shows the subtle velocity changes at the small cavity zone. The inversion procedure is: 1) conduct an inversion using regular sized cells, and generate an image of gross velocity structure by applying a 2-D median filter on the resulting tomogram, and 2) construct the starting velocity model by modifying the final velocity model from the first phase. The model was modified so that the zone of interest consists of small-sized grids. The final velocity model developed from the baseline survey was as a starting velocity model on the monitor inversion. Since we expected a velocity change only in the cavity zone, in the monitor inversion, we can significantly reduce the number of model parameters by fixing the model out-side the cavity zone equal to the baseline model.