Near‐surface tunnel detection using diffracted P‐waves: A feasibility study

Abstract

Numerous near surface geophysical techniques have been applied to the tunnel detection problem. Thus far, successful techniques require differentiating tunnel signature from noise, or a priori knowledge of tunnel location for data acquisition and processing. We propose a seismic method that has the potential to minimize interaction with the data and requires no a priori knowledge of tunnel location. Synthetic fixed receiver spread data is processed first in the common source domain then in the common receiver domain, resulting in a final gather than contains a relatively large‐amplitude, low‐frequency wavelet from which the depth and lateral location of the tunnel can be determined. This study indicates that this method could possibly be used as part of a semi‐automated procedure for tunnel detection.