• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.163-175
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• 2017

In land seismic exploration, irregular surface topography and weathering layer in near surface distorts the reflected signals of data. Therefore, typical land seismic data should be compensated for this distortion by static correction. To perform the static correction, near-surface velocity is required, which can be obtained by seismic refraction survey. However, land seismic data is often acquired in a limited form of geometry depending on the equipment availability, accessibility condition, and permission for the survey site. In this situation, refraction analysis should be performed using reflection data because it is impossible to acquire refraction-oriented data due to limited source and receiver geometry. In this study, we aimed to analyze the reliability of the results obtained by refraction traveltime tomography when using reflection data with a limited number of sources and receivers from irregular surface topography. By comparing the inversion result from irregular topography with that from flat surface, we found that the surface topography affects the reliability of the inversion results to some degree. We also found that the number of sources has little effect on the inversion results unless the number of sources are very small. On the other hand, we observed that velocity distortion occurred in the overlapped part of receiver arrays when using a limited number of receivers, and therefore suggested the size of the least overlapping ratio to avoid the velocity distortion. Finally, we performed numerical tests for the model which simulates the surface topography and acquisition geometry of the survey region and verified the reliability analysis of inversion results. We identified reliable areas and suspicious area of the inverted velocity model by applying the analysis results to field data.

• 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.

• 한국지구물리탐사학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.73-78
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• 2008

We introduce OBS and sonobuoy systems which are the typical wide-angle reflection/refraction seismic recorders made by KORDI for the investigation of crustal structure and the sediment/basement structure in the coastal area. These recording devices are examined for their usage through the test survey. The normal operation of these devices were proved and good recordings were obatined. The head waves are recognized in the sonobuoy records, which shows the possibility of velocity structure survey by the refraction and/or tomography method.

• Journal of the Korean Geophysical Society
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.57-64
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• 1999

To effectively identify near-surface faults with vertical slips from seismic refraction data, the GRM interpretation technique is tested and investigated in terms of various parameters through computer modeling. A characteristic change in shape of the velocity-analysis function near faults is noticed, and a new strategy of `Slope Variation Indicator (SVI)' is developed and tested in this study. The SVI is defined as a first horizontal derivative of the difference of velocity analysis functions for a large XY value and a small one, respectively. As the dip of refractor decreases and as the difference in XY value increases, the peak value of SVI increases and its duration decreases. Consequently, the SVI indicates accurately the location of buried fault in the test models. The SVI is believed to be an efficient tool in seismic refraction method to investigate location and distribution of shallowly buried faults.

• Journal of the Korean Geophysical Society
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.11-20
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• 2001

Seismic refraction and electrical resistivity surveys were conducted in Bangeosan Maaebul site located in Haman, Kyungnam, in order to present geophysical safety analysis method for masonry cultural properties. Seismic refraction exploration revealed that the ground was composed of three layers in term of seismic wave velocity; the upper, medium, and lower layers. The low velocity ranging from 308 to 366 m/sec in upper layer suggests weathered soil, the intermediate velocity from 1906 to 2090 m/sec in the medium layer indicates weathered rocks, and the high velocity from 5061 to 5650 m/sec in the lower layer implies extremely hard rocks. Our seismic result suggests that the upper and medium layer around the Maaebul should be reinforced to support the construct. The result of electric resistivity survey shows that there exists a low resistivity zone, ranging from 131 to 226 Ohm-m, at the right side of the Maaebul with the direction of NE-NNE. This area is the weakness zone as it plays role of the underground water passage in rainy season.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.28 no.5
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• pp.481-485
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• 1995

This paper presents a new approaching method to determine the velocity and geometry of shallow subsurface from seismic refraction events. After picking the first breaks from seismic refraction data, we assume that field refraction seismogram can be replaced by the unit delta function having time shift of first break. Time curves are generated by shooting ray tracing. The partial derivatives seismogram for a damped least squares method is computed analytically at each step of the forward ray tracing. The technique is successfully tested on synthetic and real data. It has the advantage of real full waveform inversion, which is robust at low frequency band even if the initial guess is far from the true model.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.517-523
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• 2007

Geophysical surveys(seismic refraction, electrical resistivity, and ground penetrating radar) were performed to delineate the weathering zone associated with vadose water in Chojeong area and investigate the fault related fracture zones. On the basis of seismic velocity structures, weathering layer for the southwestern part is interpreted to be deeper than for the northeastern part. The depth to bedrock(i.e., thickness of weathered zone) from seismic refraction data attempted to be correlated with drill-core data and groundwater level. As for the investigation of geological discontinuities such as fault related fracture zone, seismic refraction, electrical resistivity, and ground penetrating data are compositely employed in terms of velocity and resistivity structures for mapping of surface boundary of the discontinuities up to shallow depth. Surface boundaries of fracture zone are well indicated in seismic velocity and electrical resistivity structures. Accurate estimation of weathered zone and fracture zone can be successfully available for mapping of attitude of vadose water layer.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 1996.10a
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• pp.209-218
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• 1996

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.19-24
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• 1998

This paper deals with tomographic travel time inversion of three dimensional seismic refraction survey conducted over a dipping interface. The slowness, and thus velocity as its reciprocal, distribution on the subsurface interface is to be determined applying an ART with under-relaxtion parameter. The models chosen are realistic, i.e., most likely to be met in engineering seismics, and the interface includes anomalous zones. It is found that, generally speaking, the inversion could be misleading or meaningless without the correction of the dip of the interface. This is rather surprising when we recall that usual assumption for the interpretation of refraction seismics data is the horizontal attitude of structures within the limit of $15^{\circ}$ dip or so. To make the present method tenable for a new means of routine seismics, some practical ways of identifying head wave arrivals are to be devised.

• Proceedings of the KGS Conference
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• 2003.05a
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• pp.33-38
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• 2003

'탄성파 굴절법 탐사(Seismic Refraction Method 또는 Refraction Seismics)'는 20세기 초부터 석유탐사와 암염돔 탐사 등 지하 자원 탐사에 널리 이용되어 왔으며, 오늘날에도 여러 지구물리학적 탐사와 더불어 지하구조 해석 및 각종 탐사와 지반공학에 활용되고 있다(Palmer, 1986). 특히 지질학은 물론, 고고학 등 지형학의 유관 학문에서도 그 활용 사례가 증가하고 있는데, 비파괴적인 방법으로 지하구조에 대한 정보를 비교적 용이하게 얻을 수 있기 때문이다. (중략)