• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.216-230
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• 2014

Based on the interpretation of 3D seismic profiles acquired in the northwestern area of the Ulleung Basin, East Sea, the shallow sediments consist of five seismic units separated by regional reflectors. An anticline is present in the study area that documents activity of many faults. Bottom simulating reflectors are characterized by high RMS amplitude. Acoustic blanking with low RMS amplitude is distinctively recognized in the gas hydrate stability zone. Seismic attribute analysis shows that if gas hydrates are underlain by free gas, the high reflection strength and the low instantaneous frequency are displayed below the boundary between them. Whereas, if not, the reflection strength is low and instantaneous frequency is high continuously below the gas hydrate zone. Based on the spectral decomposition of the bottom simulating reflector, the high envelope at the specific high frequency range indicates the generation of the tuning effect due to the lower free gas content. Four models for the occurrence of the gas hydrate are suggested considering the slope of sedimentary layers as well as the presence of gas hydrate or free gas.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.40 no.6
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• pp.751-759
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• 2007

To better understand the subsurface geological structure of the Kunsan Basin in the Yellow Sea, the mean depths of the density discontinuous layers (DDLs) of the Kunsan Basin were calculated by power spectrum analysis using satellite altimetry gravity data. The calculated mean depths of DDLs were -1.1km, -3.4km, -9.1km and -31.0km. The mean depth of -1.1km DDL was interpreted as regional unconformity shown in about 1 second in two way travel time (TWTT) in the seismic reflection profiles, and the mean depth of -3.4km DDL was also interpreted as top of the acoustic basement in the seismic reflection profiles. Comparing with well data, seismic reflection profiles and regional geology in the study area, the mean depth of -9.1km DDL was interpreted as top of the igneous origin basement. This means that the acoustic basement of the study area is composed mainly of sediments which are disregarded in previous study. The mean depth of -31.0km DDL was interpreted as the Moho discontinuity because this mean depth is similar to one of the normal continental crust thickness. The detection of top of the igneous origin basement suggests that oil gas potential analysis in Kunsan Basin needs to be extended to the deeper part of sediments (acoustic basement).

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.38 no.3 s.172
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• pp.285-297
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• 2005

Seismic reflection profile analysis, potential field analysis, and potential field modeling using deep seismic reflection, gravity, magnetic, and geological data were performed to better understand the location and nature of the Grenville Front in Ohio, USA. The seismic reflection profile reveals a broad zone of east dipping basement reflectors associated with the Grenville Front in western Ohio and a broad region of west dipping reflectors cutting through the entire crust in eastern Ohio. Potential field analysis indicates that the Grenville Front is characterized by a gravity low, an associated gravity positive and a magnetic high. The results of the gravity and magnetic modeling using seismic data suggest that the lower crust is thickened at the interpreted position of the Grenville Front and high grade metamorphic rocks make up the Grenville Front Tectonic Zone (GFTZ). The gravity low at the Grenville Front is due to the thickened crust, while the magnetic high is due to high grade metamorphic rocks. The gravity high immediately east of the GFTZ in central Ohio is caused by thrusting of high density lower and middle crustal rocks into the upper crust. There is no compelling evidence that this gravity high is related to a Precambrian rift zone as has been suggested in previous studies.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.185-198
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• 2023

In marine seismic surveys, the inevitable occurrence of trace gaps in the near offset resulting from geometrical differences between sources and receivers adversely affects subsequent seismic data processing and imaging. The absence of data in the near-offset region hinders accurate seismic imaging. Therefore, reconstructing the missing near-offset information is crucial for mitigating the influence of seismic multiples, particularly in the case of offshore surveys where the impact of multiple reflections is relatively more pronounced. Conventionally, various interpolation methods based on the Radon transform have been proposed to address the issue of the nearoffset data gap. However, these methods have several limitations, leading to the recent emergence of deep-learning (DL)-based approaches as alternatives. In this study, we conducted an in-depth analysis of two representative DL-based studies to scrutinize the challenges that future studies on near-offset interpolation must address. Furthermore, through field data experiments, we precisely analyze the limitations encountered when applying previous DL-based trace interpolation techniques to near-offset situations. Consequently, we suggest that near-offset data gaps must be approached by extrapolation rather than interpolation.

• Journal of the Korean Geophysical Society
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.201-208
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• 1999

A high-resolution seismic profile acquired across the middle part of the Pungam Basin, one of the Cretaceous sedimentary basins in Korea, has been interpreted to delineate subsurface geological structures. Boundary faults, intrusive bodies, and unconformity surfaces are identified on the seismic section. Basin fills are divided into five depositional units (Units I, II, III, IV, and V in descending order). The normal faults were formed by transtentional movement along a sinistral strike-slip fault zone. Unconsolidated sediments, a weathered layer, and sedimentary layers overly the Precambrian gneiss. The granite body intruded at the southeastern part contacts the adjacent sedimentary rocks by a near-vertical fault. Granitic intrusions caused tectonic fractures and normal faults of various sizes. An andesitic intrusive body indicates post-depositional magmatic intrusions. Continuous strike-slip movements have deformed basin-filling sediments (Units I and II).

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.336-348
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• 2010

The Single-channel seismic survey with the source of bubble pulser and drilling survey was carried out in 2008 and 2009 for the site survey of Daecheon-Wonsando area, which was a proposed area of Korea-China subsea tunnel. The goal of this study is to analyze the depth and characteristics of acoustic basement for the stability assessment and tunnel design in this proposed area through combining drilling data with this single-channel seismic data after detailed processing. For this purpose, among the data processing schemes which are usually applied to multi-channel seismic data, we applied the F-K filtering to eliminate the AC(alternating current) noise and the post-stack depth migration to produce depth section. As a result, we verified that the improved depth section could be obtained from single-channel seismic data, and the distribution and characteristics of basement could be analyzed in survey area through the combined analysis with drilling data. However, we could not interpret the detailed structures, fault and fracture zone, due to the quality of bubble pulser source and single-channel data. We expect that those detailed structures can be analyzed when higher resolution seismic data is provided. Therefore, we recommend some items for future seismic survey of subsea tunnel to obtain the high resolution seismic data.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.625-633
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• 2014

The Aquistore project is the world's first commercial capture, transportation, utilization and storage project of post-combustion $CO_2$ from a coal-fired thermo electric power plant, and the proposed storage is a saline aquifer at a depth of about 3,500 m. Deep saline aquifer, compared to hydrocarbon reservoir, provides the great volumetric potential for storage of $CO_2$ anywhere in the world, therefore the research results from the project may be exported globally to other sites. Geological $CO_2$ storage characterization for saline aquifer instead of hydrocarbon reservoir needs to estimate the geophysical properties of subsurface geology. This study calculated the geophysical property of water-saturated formation by applying amplitude variation analysis developed from oil and gas exploration. We correlated horizon tops at the well logs to seismic traveltime of 1,815 and 1,857 ms as Winnipeg and Deadwood formations. Gradient analysis from seismic traces showed correlation coefficient of 45 - 81 % on amplitude variation with respect to incident angle. Crossplot of intercept and gradient shows the inverse proportional trend which represents typical water saturated sediments. Product attribute of intercept and gradient described the base of wet sediment. Poisson's ratio change attribute increased at the top of target area satisfying with wet sediment and decreased at the top of basement in a dry rock bed.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.25-30
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• 1998

Time-lapse crosswell seismic data, recorded before and after the cavity filling, showed that the filling increased the velocity at a known cavity zone in an old mine site in Inchon area. The seismic response depicted on the tomogram and in conjunction with the geologic data from drillings imply that the size of the cavity may be either small or filled by debris. In this study, I attempted to evaluate the filling effect by analyzing velocity measured from the time-lapse tomograms. The data acquired by a downhole airgun and 24-channel hydrophone system revealed that there exists measurable amounts of source statics. I presented a methodology to estimate the source statics. The procedure for this method is: 1) examine the source firing-time for each source, and remove the effect of irregular firing time, and 2) estimate the residual statics caused by inaccurate source positioning. This proposed multi-step inversion may reduce high frequency numerical noise and enhance the resolution at the zone of interest. The multi-step inversion with different starting models successfully shows the subtle velocity changes at the small cavity zone. The inversion procedure is: 1) conduct an inversion using regular sized cells, and generate an image of gross velocity structure by applying a 2-D median filter on the resulting tomogram, and 2) construct the starting velocity model by modifying the final velocity model from the first phase. The model was modified so that the zone of interest consists of small-sized grids. The final velocity model developed from the baseline survey was as a starting velocity model on the monitor inversion. Since we expected a velocity change only in the cavity zone, in the monitor inversion, we can significantly reduce the number of model parameters by fixing the model out-side the cavity zone equal to the baseline 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.

• 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.