• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.475-485
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• 2006

The physical properties of the central and southwestern crust of South Korea were estimated by comparing values of ${Q_P}^{-1}\;and\;{Q_S}^{-1}$ in the Kimcheon and Mokpo areas. In order to get ${Q_P}^{-1}\;and\;{Q_S}^{-1}$ values, seismic data were collected from two stations of the KIGAM network (KMC and MUN) and four stations of the KMA network (CPN, KUC, MOP, and WAN). An extended coda-normalization method was applied to these data. Estimates of ${Q_P}^{-1}\;and\;{Q_S}^{-1}$ show variations depending on frequency. As frequencies vary from 3 Hz to 24 Hz, the estimates decrease from $(1.4{\pm}3.9){\times}10^{-3}\;to\;(2.3{\pm}3.5){\times}10^{-4}\;for\;{Q_P}^{-1}\;and\;(1.8{\pm}1.3){\times}10^{-3}\;to\;(1.9{\pm}1.5){\times}10^{-4}\;for\;{Q_S}^{-1}$ in central South Korea, and $(5.9{\pm}4.8){\times}10^{-3}\;to\;(2.2{\pm}3.8){\times}10^{-4}\;for\;{Q_P}^{-1}\;and\;(0.5{\pm}2.8){\times}10^{-3}\;to\;(1.8{\pm}1.6){\times}10^{-4}\;for\;{Q_S}^{-1}$ in southwestern South Korea. According that a frequency-dependent power law is applied to the data, the best fits of ${Q_P}^{-1}\;and\;{Q_S}^{-1}\;are\;0.003f^{-0.49}\;and\;0.005f^{-1.03}$ in central South Korea, and $0.026f^{-1.47}$ and $0.001f^{-0.49}$ in southwestern South Korea, respectively. These values almost correspond to those of seismically stable regions although ${Q_P}^{-1}$ values of southwestern South Korea are a little high due to lack of data used.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.513-523
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• 2012

The upper sedimentary layer of the Ulleung Basin in the East Sea shows stacked mass-flow deposits such as slide/slump deposits in the upper slope, debris-flow deposits in the middle and lower slope, and turbidites in the basin plain. Shallow gases or gas hydrates are also reported in many area of the Ulleung Basin, which are very important in terms of marine resources, environmental changes, and geohazard. This paper aims at studying acoustic characteristics and distribution pattern of gas-related structures such as acoustic column, enhanced reflector, dome structure, pockmark, and gas seepage in the upper sedimentary layer, by analysing high-resolution chirp profiles. Acoustic column shows a transparent pillar shape in the sedimentary layer and mainly occurs in the basin plain. Enhanced reflector is characterized by an increased amplitude and laterally extended to several tens up kilometers. Dome structure is characterized by an upward convex feature at the seabed, and mainly occurs in the lower slope. The pockmark shows a small crater-like feature and usually occurs in the middle and lower slope. Gas seepage is commonly found in the middle slope of the southern Ulleung Basin. These gas-related structures seem to be mainly caused by gas migration and escape in the sedimentary layer. The distribution pattern of the gas-related structures indicates that formation of these structures in the Ulleung Basin is controlled not only by sedimentary facies in upper sedimentary layer but also by gas-solubility changes depending on water depth. Especially, it is interpreted that the chaotic and discontinuous sedimentary structures of debris-flow deposits cause the facilitation of gas migration, whereas the continuous sedimentary layers of turbidites restrict the vertical migration of gases.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.83-94
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• 2011

Extra heavy oil reservoirs are distributed over the world but most of them is deposited in the northern part of the Orinoco River in Venezuela, in the area of 5,500 $km^2$, This region, which has been commonly called "the Orinoco Oil Belt", contains estimated 1.3 trillion barrels of original oil-in-place and 250 billion barrels of established reserves. The Venezuela extra heavy oil has an API gravity of less than 10 degree and in situ viscosity of 5,000 cP at reservoir condition. Although the presence of extra heavy oil in the Orinoco Oil Belt has been initially reported in the 1930's, the commercial development using in situ cold production started in the 1990's. The Orinoco heavy oil deposits are clustered into 4 development areas, Boyaco, Junin, Ayachoco, and Carabobo respectively, and they are subdivided into totally 31 production blocks. Nowadays, PDVSA (Petr$\'{o}$leos de Venzuela, S.A.) makes a development of each production block with the international oil companies from more than 20 countries forming a international joint-venture company. The Eastern Venezuela Basin, the Orinoco Oil Belt is included in, is one of the major oil-bearing sedimentary basins in Venezuela and is first formed as a passive margin basin by the Jurassic tectonic plate motion. The major source rock of heavy oil is the late Cretaceous calcareous shale in the central Eastern Venezuela Basin. Hydrocarbon materials migrated an average of 150 km up dip to the southern margin of the basin. During the migration, lighter fractions in the hydrocarbon were removed by biodegradation and the oil changed into heavy and/or extra heavy oil. Miocene Oficina Formation, the main extra heavy oil reservoir, is the unconsolidated sand and shale alternation formed in fluvial-estuarine environment and also has irregularly a large number of the Cenozoic faults induced by basin subsidence and tectonics. Because Oficina Formation has not only complex lithology distribution but also irregular geology structure, geological evolution and characteristics of the reservoirs have to be determined for economical production well design and effective oil recovery. This study introduces geological formation and evolution of the Venezuela extra heavy oil reservoirs and suggest their significant geological characteristics which are (1) thickness and geometry of reservoir pay sands, (2) continuity and thickness of mud beds, (3) geometry of faults, (4) depth and geothermal character of reservoir, (5) in-situ stress field of reservoir, and (6) chemical composition of extra heavy oil. Newly developed exploration techniques, such as 3-D seismic survey and LWD (logging while drilling), can be expected as powerful methods to recognize the geological reservoir characteristics in the Orinoco Oil Belt.

• The Sea:JOURNAL OF THE KOREAN SOCIETY OF OCEANOGRAPHY
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.81-92
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• 2001

According to analyses of high-resolution seismic profiles (air gun, sparker, and SBP) and a deep-drill core(YSDP 105) in the mid-eastern Yellow Sea, stratigraphic and geoacoustic models have been established and seismo-acoustic modeling has been fulfilled using ray tracing of finite element method. Stratigraphic model reflects seismo-, litho-, and chrono-stratigraphic sequences formed under a significant influence of Quaternary glacio-eustatic sea-level fluctuations. Each sequence consists of terrestrial to very-shallow-marine coarse-grained lowstand systems tract and tidal fine-grained transgressive to highstand systems tract. Based on mean grain-size data (121 samples) of the drill core, bulk density and P-wave velocity of depositional units have been inferred and extrapolated down to a depth of the recovery using the Hamilton's regression equations. As goo-acoustic parameters, the 121 pairs of bulk density and P-wave velocity have been averaged on each unit of the stratigraphic model. As a result of computer ray-tracing simulation of the subsurface strata, we have found that there are complex ray paths and many acoustic-shadow zones owing to the presence of irregular layer boundaries and low-velocity layers.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.33 no.5_1
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• pp.469-480
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• 2017

This study aims to understand the relationship between lineaments and epicenters in Geochang region, Gyungsangnam-do, South Korea. An instrumental observation of earthquakes has been started by Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA) since 1978 and there were 6 earthquakes with magnitude ranging 2 to 2.5 in Geochang region from 1978 to 2016. Lineaments were extracted from LANDSAT 8 satellite image and shaded relief map displayed in 3-dimension using Digital Elevation Model (DEM). Then, lineament density was statistically examined by hotspot analysis. Hexagonal grids were generated to perform the analysis because hexagonal pattern expresses lineaments with less discontinuity than square girds, and the size of the grid was selected to minimize a variance of lineament density. Since hotspot analysis measures the extent of clustering with Z score, Z scores computed with lineaments' frequency ($L_f$), length ($L_d$), and intersection ($L_t$) were used to find lineament clusters in the density map. Furthermore, the Z scores were extracted from the epicenters and examined to see the relevance of each density elements to epicenters. As a result, 15 among 18 densities,recorded as 3 elements in 6 epicenters, were higher than 1.65 which is 95% of the standard normal distribution. This indicates that epicenters coincide with high density area. Especially, $L_f$ and $L_t$ had a significant relationship with epicenter, being located in upper 95% of the standard normal distribution, except for one epicenter in $L_t$. This study can be used to identify potential seismic zones by improving the accuracy of expressing lineaments' spatial distribution and analyzing relationship between lineament density and epicenter. However, additional studies in wider study area with more epicenters are recommended to promote the results.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.243-248
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• 2010

Two suspicious events, which were claimed as underground nuclear tests by North Korea, were detected in the northern Korean Peninsula on October 9, 2006 and May 25, 2009. The KIGAM and Korea-China Joint seismic stations are distributed uniformly along the boundaries between North Korea and adjacent countries. In this study, the data from broadband stations with the distance of 200 to 550 km from the test site are used to analyze and compare two nuclear tests of North Korea. By comparing the time differences of the Pn-wave arrival times of 1st and 2nd tests at multiple stations, the relative locations of two test sites could be calculated precisely. From the geometrical calculation with the velocity of Pn wave $V_{Pn}$ = 8 km/s, the 2nd test site is estimated to move in the WNW direction from 1st one with the distance of 2 km. Body wave magnitude, mb of the 2nd test, which was announced officially as the network average of 4.5, varies widely with the directional location of stations from 4.1 to 5.2. The magnitude obtained from Lg wave, $m_b$(Lg), shows less variation between 4.3 to 4.7 with the average of 4.6. The moving-window spectra of time traces of 1st and 2nd tests show very similar pattern with different scale level. In addition, the corner frequencies of P wave of 1st and 2nd tests at each station show no or negligible difference. This indicates the burial depths of two tests might be very similar. The relative yield amount of the 2nd test is estimated 8 times larger than that of the 1st from the weighted average of ground-velocity amplitude ratios.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.98-104
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• 2011

Numerical simulation in exploration geophysics provides important insights into subsurface wave propagation phenomena. Although elastic wave simulations take longer to compute than acoustic simulations, an elastic simulator can construct more realistic wavefields including shear components. Therefore, it is suitable for exploration of the responses of elastic bodies. To overcome the long duration of the calculations, we use a Graphic Processing Unit (GPU) to accelerate the elastic wave simulation. Because a GPU has many processors and a wide memory bandwidth, we can use it in a parallelised computing architecture. The GPU board used in this study is an NVIDIA Tesla C1060, which has 240 processors and a 102 GB/s memory bandwidth. Despite the availability of a parallel computing architecture (CUDA), developed by NVIDIA, we must optimise the usage of the different types of memory on the GPU device, and the sequence of calculations, to obtain a significant speedup of the computation. In this study, we simulate two- (2D) and threedimensional (3D) elastic wave propagation using the Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) method on GPUs. In the wave propagation simulation, we adopt the staggered-grid method, which is one of the conventional FD schemes, since this method can achieve sufficient accuracy for use in numerical modelling in geophysics. Our simulator optimises the usage of memory on the GPU device to reduce data access times, and uses faster memory as much as possible. This is a key factor in GPU computing. By using one GPU device and optimising its memory usage, we improved the computation time by more than 14 times in the 2D simulation, and over six times in the 3D simulation, compared with one CPU. Furthermore, by using three GPUs, we succeeded in accelerating the 3D simulation 10 times.

• The Korean Journal of Petroleum Geology
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.27-33
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• 2006

The possibility of oil reserve has been conformed because the oil has been produced by 450 barrel per day in the West Korea Bay basin of the North Korea. There is also possibility of giant oil reserve since it is geographically close to one of the biggest oil fields of Bohai Basin, China. Based on the on-going oil exploration and the present condition of investment, the areas of ongoing oil exploration are three: West Korea Bay B&C prospect explored by Swedish Taurus, the north of West Korea Bay and Anju basin explored by Canadian SOCO, and East Korea Bay explored by Australian Beach Petroleum. However, there is little or no possibility of oil reserve in the rest sea areas of three. Even though oil reserves were discovered in the some parts of land areas such as Kilju and Myungcheon, it was presumed to have no economical efficiency. Geology in West Korea Bay off the North Korea is similar to that in Bohai Bay off China. The basement consists of thick carbonate rock of the Late Proterozoic and Early Paleozoic overlain by Mesozoic ($6,000{\sim}10,000\;m$) and Cenozoic ($4,000{\sim}5,000\;m$) units. Source rocks are Jurassic black shale (3,000 m or more), Cretaceous black shale ($1,000{\sim}2,000\;m$), and pre-Mesozoic carbonates (several thousand meters). Reservoir rocks are Mesozoic-Cenozoic sandstone with high porosity and pre-Mesozoic fractured carbonate rocks. Petroleum raps are of the anticline, fault sealed, buried hill, and stratigraphic types. It absolutely needs to take up a positive attitude, the activation of ocean science and technology exchange, and the joint research and development of modern MT (Marine Technology) considering the state of establishing new international ocean order forcing on building up 200 nautical mile EEZ (exclusive economic zone) among coastal nations. Both South and North Koreas should extend the ocean jurisdiction and contiguity, and MT development dealing with the same sea areas. It is more urgent problem to find a way to have the North Korea participated in, and then to develop ocean management and ocean industry individually.

• 한국해양학회지
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.24-40
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• 1988

In the Korea Ocean Nodule Development (KONOD)-1 area between the Clarion and Clipperton fracture zones of the northeastern equatorial Pacific, the pelagic sediment layer can be divided into two or three units on air-gun seismic profile. The acoustic units can be also correlated with those in the DSDP site 163 core. The topmost unit (unit I) is acoustically transparent and consists of zeolitic clay and radiolarian ooze of late Oligocene to middle Eocene age. Unit IIA is well-stratified and transparent in the lower part. consisting of the radiolarian ooze intercalated with chert beds and zeolitic clay of early Eocene to Paleocene age. Unit IIB is stratified with layers of silicified and compacted flinty-cherty nannofossil chalk (late Cretaceous) on top of the acoustic basement. Units I and IIA form the Line Islands Formation that overlies an unnamed formation of unit lIB. The entire layers and the unit I layer propressively thin northward, except near the Line Islands Ridge. The distribution of sediment layer has been controlled by the equatorial Cenozoic CCD and the northward spreading of the Pacific plate. The change of CCD corresponding to the subsidence and migration of the plate has determined the sediment composition of the DSDP 163 core passed across the equator of high sedimentation suite. The late Cretaceous sedimentary layer (unit IIB) in the 163 core was formed above the CCD south of the equator. The unit IIA resulted from rapid subsidence of the Pacific plate below the CCD in the Paleocene. The unit IIA is seen only in the west of 149 W. Both the units IIA and I were probably formed during the Pacific plate passing and after leaving the equatorial region respectively since early Eocene. In the south of the KONOD-l area, the unit I was redistributed by bottom current, a branch of the Antarctic Bottom Water flowing eastward guided by the Clipperton fracture zone. The activities of bottom currents were prolonged for a long geological time. Turbidite layers occur more than 350 km from the Hawaiian Ridge to near the Clarion fracture zone. They originated directly from the Hawaiian Ridge, filling the topographic lows.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.661-672
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• 2012

Lab scale experiments to investigate the dissolution reaction among supercritical $CO_2$-sandstone-groundwater by using sandstones from Gyeongsang basin were performed. High pressurized cell system (100 bar and $50^{\circ}C$) was designed to create supercritical $CO_2$ in the cell, simulating the sub-surface $CO_2$ storage site. The first-order dissolution coefficient ($k_d$) of the sandstone was calculated by measuring the change of the weight of thin section or the concentration of ions dissolved in groundwater at the reaction time intervals. For 30 days of the supercritical $CO_2$-sandstone-groundwater reaction, physical properties of sandstone cores in Gyeongsang basin were measured to investigate the effect of supercritical $CO_2$ on the sandstone. The weight change of sandstone cores was also measured to calculate the dissolution coefficient and the dissolution time of 1 g per unit area (1 $cm^2$) of each sandstone was quantitatively predicted. For the experiment using thin sections, mass of $Ca^{2+}$ and $Na^+$ dissolved in groundwater increased, suggesting that plagioclase and calcite of the sandstone would be significantly dissolved when it contacts with supercritical $CO_2$ and groundwater at $CO_2$ sequestration sites. 0.66% of the original thin sec-tion mass for the sandstone were dissolved after 30 days reaction. The average porosity for C sandstones was 8.183% and it increased to 8.789% after 30 days of the reaction. The average dry density, seismic velocity, and 1-D compression strength of sandstones decreased and these results were dependent on the porosity increase by the dissolution during the reaction. By using the first-order dissolution coefficient, the average time to dissolve 1 g of B and C sandstones per unit area (1 $cm^2$) was calculated as 1,532 years and 329 years, respectively. From results, it was investigated that the physical property change of sandstones at Gyeongsang basin would rapidly occur when the supercritical $CO_2$ was injected into $CO_2$ sequestration sites.