• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.197-203
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• 2008

A shallow high-resolution seismic reflection survey was carried out at the Mineopo tidal flat on the western coast of Korea. The purpose of the survey was to investigate shallow sedimentary structure of the tidal flat associated with the recent sea level change. A total of 795 shots were generated at 1 m interval from a 5-kg hammer source and recorded on 48 channels of 100 Hz geophones along two mutually perpendicular profiles. The water-saturated ground condition resulted in suppressed ground rolls by significantly decreasing rigidity. In addition, seismic velocities over 1500 m/s provided easy segregation of reflected arrivals from lower velocity noise. As a consequence, seismic sections from the study area show significantly higher resolution and signal to noise ratio than conventional land seismic sections. The tidal flat consists of 5 sedimentary sequences above acoustic basement. The seismic sections reveal the continuous structure of the tidal flat formed in association with sea level rise during the Holocene.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2008.03a
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• pp.7-13
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• 2008

To obtain a shear-wave velocity profile in geotechnical practice, various seismic investigation methods which have their own strength and weakness are being frequently used. Generally, geotechnical site have lateral variation of the properties, so it is needed to determine 2-dimensional shear wave velocity imaging of the site. In this study, harmonic wavelet analysis of wave (HWAW) method is applied to determination of 2-D $V_s$ imaging. HWAW method which is based on time-frequency analysis using harmonic wavelet transform have been developed to determine phase and group velocities of waves. HWAW method uses the signal portion of the maximum local signal/noise ratio to evaluate the phase velocity to minimize the effects of noise. HWAW method determine detailed local $V_s$ profile because one experimental setup which consists of one pair of receivers with spacing of 1~3m is used to determine the dispersion curve of the whole depth. So, 2-D Vs imaging with relatively high resolution can be determined through a series of HWAW test. In order to estimate the applicability of HWAW method, field tests were performed in 4 sites. Through field applications and comparison with other test results, the good accuracy and applicability of the proposed method were verified.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.305-312
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• 2017

The most effective way to distinguish subsurface interfaces that produce various geophysical responses is through the integration of multiple geophysical methods, with each method detecting both a complementary and unique set of distinct physical properties relating to the subsurface. In this study, shallow seismic reflection (SSR) and ground penetrating radar (GPR) surveys were conducted at the Cheongju-Gadeok site of the Korea National Groundwater Monitoring Network to map the water table, which was measured at 12 m depth during the geophysical surveys. The water table proved to be a good target reflector in both datasets, as the abrupt transition from the overlying unsaturated weathered rock to the underlying saturated weathered rock yielded large acoustic impedance and dielectric constant contrasts. The two datasets were depth converted and integrated into a single section, with the SSR and GPR surveys conducted to ensure subsurface imaging at approximately the same wavelength. The GPR data provided detailed information on the upper ~15 m of the section, whereas the SSR data imaged structures at depths of 10-45 m. The integrated section thus captured the full depth coverage of the sandy clay, water table, weathered rock, soft rock, and hard rock structures, which correlated well with local drillcore and water table observations. Incorporation of these two geophysical datasets yielded a synthetic section that resembled a simplified aquifer model, with the best-fitting seismic velocity, dielectric constant, and porosity of the saturated weathered layer being $v_{seismic}=1000m/s$, ${\varepsilon}_r=16$, and ${\phi}=0.32$, respectively.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.28-34
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• 2003

A problem of ground subsidence has been a focus of our research over the past 3 years. The purpose of this study is to investigate the disturbed stratigraphic structure by mining and to separate the possible ground subsidence area using shallow seismic reflection survey and processing. To overcome the problems such as the distortion and attenuation of seismic signal caused by ground disturbance and to acquire the high frequency data, an array with short spacing (0.3m) for both the shot and receivers, yielding near-offset (<30m) and CMP spacing of 0.15m was implemented. Data were acquired along the survey line with length of about 43m by fixed receiver array. By considering statics caused by the ground disturbance and offset distribution of data, careful processing steps such as muting and residual statics correction were applied for successful shallow reflection imaging. By correlating the ground subsidence data and stack section, possible subsidence zone could be interpreted quantitatively.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.349-358
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• 2010

For imaging complex subsurface structures such as salt dome, faults, thrust belt, and folds, seismic prestack reverse-time migration in depth domain is widely used, which is performed by the cross-correlation of shot-domain wavefield extrapolation with receiver-domain wavefield extrapolation. We apply the prestack reverse-time migration, which had been developed at KIGAM, to the seismic field data set of Block 5 in Jeju basin of Korea continental shelf in order to improve subsurface syncline stratigraphy image of the deep structures under the shot point 8km at the surface. We performed basic data processing for improving S/N ratio in the shot gathers, and constructed a velocity model from stack velocity which was calculated by the iterative velocity spectrum. The syncline structure of the stack image appears as disconnected interfaces due to the diffractions, but the result of the prestack migration shows that the syncline image is improved as seismic energy is concentrated on the geological interfaces.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Nondestructive Testing
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.105-114
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• 2007

Two-dimensional imaging of $V_s$ profile becomes more important in Korea because of the large horizontal variation of soil stiffness. To obtain a shear-wave velocity profile in geotechnical practice, various seismic nondestructive investigation methods are being frequently used. In this study, harmonic wavelet analysis of wave (HWAW) method is applied to the determination of $V_s$ profile to overcome some of weaknesses in the existing surface wave methods. HWAW method which is based on time-frequency analysis using harmonic wavelet transform has been developed to determine phase and group velocities of waves. Field testing of this method is relatively simple and fast because one experimental setup which consists of one pair of receivers is needed to determine $V_s$ profile of site. The proposed method uses the signal portion of the maximum local signal/noise ratio to evaluate the phase velocity to minimize the effects of noise, and uses single array inversion which considers receiver locations. Field tests were performed in 2 sites in order to evaluate accuracy of test method and estimate the applicability of 2-D imaging by HWAW method. Through field applications and comparison with other test results, the good accuracy and applicability of the proposed method were verified.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.5 no.3
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• pp.178-184
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• 2002

For economy and convenience, seismic refraction survey is widely used in surveying for large civil engineering work. The purpose of this study is to obtain the numerical responses of various models using Kirchhoff migration, and to analyze its application to the real data processing. Synthetic traveltime curve was calculated by vidale's algorithm, and various models such as 2 or 3 layer model and irregular topography model are tested to simulate the response of real structure. In order to compare the effect of initial velocity model, true velocity models, inversion results by tomography, smooth velocity models are used as an initial guess. The responses of model data show that the algorithm of this study is more sensitive to initial velocity model than the reflection survey, so choosing a suitable initial velocity model will be the most important thing in real data processing.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.139-147
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• 2006

We had conducted a numerical modeling to investigate seismic properties of gas hydrate with field parameters acquired over the East sea in 1998. We used a 2-D staggered grid finite difference method to generate synthetic elastic seismograms for multi-channel seismic survey, OBC (Ocean Bottom Cable) survey and VCS (Vertical Cable Seismic) survey. The results of this study showed that the method using staggered grid yielded stable results and could be used to seismic imaging. We could find out the high amplitude anomaly and the phase reversal phenomenon of reflection wave at interface between the gas hydrate layer and free gas layer such a BSR (Bottom Simulating Reflector) which is the evidence for existence of gas hydrate in seismic reflection data. And we computed the reflection coefficients at the incident angles corresponding to offset distance with the synthetic seismograms. The reflection coefficients acquired from the numerical modeling were nearly consistent with the reflection coefficient computed by Shuey's equation.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.13-21
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• 2020

The acquisition and processing of long-offset data are essential for imaging deep geological structures in marine seismic surveys. It is challenging to derive an accurate subsurface image by employing conventional data processing to long-offset data owing to the normal moveout (NMO) stretch and non-hyperbolic moveout phenomena induced by seismic anisotropy. In 2017, the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources conducted a simultaneous two-dimensional multichannel streamer and ocean-bottom seismic survey using a 5.7-km streamer and an ocean-bottom seismometer to identify the deep geological structure of the Ulleung Basin. Herein, the actual geological subsurface structure was obtained via the sequential iterative updating of the velocity and anisotropic parameters of the long-offset data obtained using a multichannel streamer, and anisotropic prestack Kirchhoff migration was performed using the updated velocity and anisotropic parameters as input parameters. As a result, the reflection energy in the long-offset traces, which showed non-hyperbolic moveout owing to seismic anisotropy, was well aligned horizontally and NMO stretches were also reduced. Thus, a more precise and accurate migrated image was obtained, minimizing the distortion of reflectors and mispositioned reflection energy.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.24-30
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• 2010

This study utilises repeated numerical tests to understand the effects of variable near-surface conditions on time-lapse seismic surveys. The numerical tests were aimed at reproducing the significant scattering observed in field experiments conducted at the Naylor site in the Otway Basin for the purpose of $CO_2$ sequestration. In particular, the variation of elastic properties of both the top soil and the deeper rugose clay/limestone interface as a function of varying water saturation were investigated. Such tests simulate the measurements conducted in dry and wet seasons and to evaluate the contribution of these seasonal variations to seismic measurements in terms of non-repeatability. Full elastic pre-stack modelling experiments were carried out to quantify these effects and evaluate their individual contributions. The results show that the relatively simple scattering effects of the corrugated near-surface clay/limestone interface can have a profound effect on time-lapse surveys. The experiments also show that the changes in top soil saturation could potentially affect seismic signature even more than the corrugated deeper surface. Overall agreement between numerically predicted and in situ measured normalised root-mean-square (NRMS) differences between repeated (time-lapse) 2D seismic surveys warrant further investigation. Future field studies will include in situ measurements of the elastic properties of the weathered zone through the use of 'micro Vertical Seismic Profiling (VSP)' arrays and very dense refraction surveys. The results of this work may impact on other areas not associated with $CO_2$ sequestration, such as imaging oil production over areas where producing fields suffer from a karstic topography, such as in the Middle East and Australia.