• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.14-25
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• 2022

The passive surface wave method measures seismic signals from ambient noises or vibrations of natural phenomena without using an artificial source. Since passive sources are usually in lower frequencies than artificial ones being able to ensure the information on deeper geological structures, the passive surface wave method can investigate deeper geological structures. In the passive method, frequency dispersion curves are obtained after data acquisition, and the dispersion curves are analyzed by assuming 1D-layered earth, which is like the method of active surface wave survey. However, when computing dispersion curves, the passive method first obtains and analyzes coherence curves of received signals from a set of receivers based on spatial autocorrelation. In this review, we explain how passive surface wave methods measure signals, and make data processing and interpretation, before analyzing field application cases.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.210-224
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• 2019

Surface wave (SW) surveys, which have been applied to numerous application fields ranging from micro-scale ultrasonic analysis to geological scale analysis, are widely used to monitor near-surface stability. The survey method is basically made through analysis on dispersion of SW propagating along the earth surface, in order to delineate shear velocity structure of subsurface. SW survey data are inverted with assuming one-dimensional (1D) layered-earth in order to recover shear wave velocities of each layer, after being analyzed to make the dispersion curve that shows phase velocity of SW with respect to frequency. This study reviews surface wave surveys with explaining the basic theory including the characteristics of dispersion and the procedure of general data processing. Even though surface wave surveys can be categorized into active and passive methods, this paper focuses only on active surface wave methods which includes continuous SW (CSW), spectral analysis of SW (SASW) and multichannel analysis of SW (MASW). Passive method will be reviewed in the subsequent paper.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.16 no.4 s.50
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• pp.381-392
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• 2006

The passive surface wave survey using microtremor is conducted in areas of crystalline rock basements to obtain average shear-wave velocity structures to 30 m deep (Vs30), on which the earthquake-resistant design standard is based. Test data were recorded at two sites with triangular and L-shaped arrays for 4 seconds with an sampling interval of 2 ms. The microtremor recorded at a site were analysed using the spatial autocorrelation method to obtain phase-velocity spectra and effects of major factors such as size and shape of away and number of record and receiver were examined. At the other site, shear-wave velocities were derived from VSP and microtremor data separately. The results from these two methods agree to each other reasonably well, indicating that the microtremor method can be an effective geophysical tool to measure Vs30.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2012

To evaluate methods of determining near-surface shear-wave velocities (${\nu}_s$), we derived dispersion curves of Rayleigh waves generated by both passive and active sources in Chuncheon, Korea. Microtremors were recorded for 5 minutes in each of four triangular arrays with radii of 5 ~ 40 m. Those data were analyzed using the Spatial Autocorrelation method. Rayleigh waves were also generated by a hammer source and recorded in the same area for 2 s using 24 4.5-Hz geophones. Multichannel Analysis of Surface Waves was applied to those data. Velocity spectra were derived with relatively high signal-to-noise ratios in the frequency ranges of 7 ~ 19 and 11 ~ 50 Hz for the microtremors and synthetically generated Rayleigh waves, respectively. The resultant dispersion curves were combined as one and then input to inversion to derive shear wave velocities that were compared with a lithology log from a nearby well. Shearwave velocities in the top soil and soft-rock layers are almost constant with values of 221 and 846 m/s, respectively; while the inverse-modeled ${\nu}_s$ increases linearly in the gravelly sand, cobbles, and weathered-rock layers. If rock type is classified based on shear-wave velocity, the inversion-derived boundary between weathered-rock and soft rock may be about 5 m deeper than in the well log.