• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.23 no.8
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• pp.29-36
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• 2022

The importance of subsurface information is becoming crucial in urban area due to increase of underground construction. The position of underground facilities should be identified precisely before excavation work. Geophyiscal exporation method such as ground penetration radar (GPR) can be useful to investigate the subsurface facilities. GPR transmits electromagnetic waves to the ground and analyzes the reflected signals to determine the location and depth of subsurface facilities. Unfortunately, the readability of GPR signal is not favorable. To overcome this deficiency and automate the GPR signal processing, deep learning technique has been introduced recently. The accuracy of deep learning model can be improved with abundant training data. The ground is inherently heteorogeneous and the spacially variable ground properties can affact on the GPR signal. However, the effect of ground heterogeneity on the GPR signal has yet to be fully investigated. In this study, ground heterogeneity is simulated based on the fractal theory and GPR simulation is carried out by using gprMax. It is found that as the fractal dimension increases exceed 2.0, the error of fitting parameter reduces significantly. And the range of water content should be less than 0.14 to secure the validity of analysis.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.153-163
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• 2016

In order to prevent ground collapses by groundwater level drawdown, we need to understand the groundwater flow and also make an analytical approach to the cause of the collapses. In this study, we used the result of the soil lab tests to compare and review the suitability of the various interaction equations about the relation between volumetric water content and the dielectric constant. In addition, using GPR (Ground-Penetrating Radar), we reviewed the possibility of calculating an estimate of dielectric constant. Lastly, we applied seepage analysis and stress-strain analysis to the sandy ground given by ground excavation. In comparison with the previous result of the soil lab tests, we similarly predicted the suction of unsaturated soil from results of stress-strain analysis considered the seepage force for the unsaturated soil.

• Journal of Korean Tunnelling and Underground Space Association
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.341-353
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• 2022

Pipelines are buried in urban area, and the position (depth and orientation) of buried pipeline should be clearly identified before ground excavation. Although various geophysical methods can be used to detect the buried pipeline, it is not easy to identify the exact information of pipeline due to heterogeneous ground condition. Among various non-destructive geo-exploration methods, ground penetration radar (GPR) can explore the ground subsurface rapidly with relatively low cost compared to other exploration methods. However, the exploration data obtained from GPR requires considerable experiences because interpretation is not intuitive. Recently, researches on automated detection technology for GPR data using deep learning have been conducted. However, the lack of GPR data which is essential for training makes it difficult to build up the reliable detection model. To overcome this problem, we conducted a preliminary study to improve the performance of the detection model using finite difference time domain (FDTD)-based numerical analysis. Firstly, numerical analysis was performed with homogeneous soil media having single permittivity. In case of heterogeneous ground, numerical analysis was performed considering the ground heterogeneity using fractal technique. Secondly, deep learning was carried out using convolutional neural network. Detection Model-A is trained with data set obtained from homogeneous ground. And, detection Model-B is trained with data set obtained from homogeneous ground and heterogeneous ground. As a result, it is found that the detection Model-B which is trained including heterogeneous ground shows better performance than detection Model-A. It indicates the ground heterogeneity should be considered to increase the performance of automated detection model for GPR exploration.

• The Journal of Engineering Geology
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.525-534
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• 2014

Environmental problems typically occurring in abandoned mine lands (AML) include: contaminated and acidic surface water and groundwater; stockpiled waste rock and mill tailings; and ground subsidences due to mining operations. This study examines the effectiveness of various geophysical techniques for mapping potential hazard and contaminated zones. Four AML sites with sedimentation contamination problems, acid mine drainage (AMD) channels, ground subsidence, manmade liner leakage, and buried mine tailings, were selected to examine the applicability of various geophysical methods to the identification of the different types of mine hazards. Geophysical results were correlated to borehole data (core samples, well logs, tomographic profiles, etc.) and water sample data (pH, electrical conductivity (EC), and heavy metal contents). Zones of low electrical resistivity (ER) corresponded to areas contaminated by heavy metals, especially contamination by Cu, Pb, and Zn. The main pathways of AMD leachate were successfully mapped using ER methods (low anomaly peaks), self-potential (SP) curves (negative peaks), and ground penetrating radar (GPR) at shallow penetration depths. Mine cavities were well located based on composite interpretations of ER, seismic tomography, and well-log records; mine cavity locations were also observed in drill core data and using borehole image processing systems (BIPS). Damaged zones in buried manmade liners (used to block descending leachate) were precisely detected by ER mapping, and buried rock waste and tailings piles were characterized by low-velocity zones in seismic refraction data and high-resistivity zones in the ER data.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.132-148
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• 2019

Recently, safety and environmental concerns have become major social issues. Especially, a special underground-safety law has been made and enacted to prevent ground subsidence around construction sites. For environmental problems, several researches have started or will start on characterization of contaminated sites, in-situ environmental remediation in subsurface, and monitoring of remediation results. As a part of the researches, geophysical surveys, which have been mainly applied to explore mineral resources, geological features or ground, are used to characterize not only contaminated areas but also fluid flow paths in subsurface environments. As a basic study for the application of geophysical surveys to detect contamination in subsurface, this paper analyzes previous researches to understand changes in geophysical properties of contaminated zones by various contaminants such as leachate, heavy metals, and non-adequate phase liquid (NAPL). Furthermore, this paper briefly introduces how geophysical surveys like direct-current electrical resistivity, induced polarization and ground penetration radar surveys can be applied to detect each contamination, before analyzing case studies of the applications in contaminated areas by NAPL, leachate, heavy metal or nitrogen oxides.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.55 no.1
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• pp.111-125
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• 2022

Since landslide can cause huge damages to many facilities, close characterization of slopes is needed for appropriate reinforcements for the unstable ones in order to prevent the damages. Geophysical surveys, which can characterize a large area at a relatively low cost without disturbing slopes, have been widely employed for the assessment of slope stability in other countries. However, only conventional direct investigation methods are mainly used in Korea. In this paper, we analyzed various cases, which evaluated slope stabilities by characterizing slopes using geophysical exploration. First, we introduced changes in geophysical properties due to unstable media of slope like fracture location, fracture connectivity and distribution of groundwater level, and subsequently discussed the applicability of geophysical methods to the detection of the changes; the methods include electrical resistivity survey, seismic survey, self-potential survey, induced polarization survey and ground penetrating radar. Based on this description, we analyzed how geophysical surveys were performed on various slopes.