• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.36 no.6
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• pp.501-510
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• 2003

Several geophysical surveys(electrical resistivity, electromagnetic, seismic refraction, CPR) were conducted to primarily investigate the gallery and the geomembrane at an abandoned mine(Imcheon mine). The subsurface structure mapped from seismic refraction survey mainly consists of three velocity layers(>1000 m/s, 1000∼2000 m/s,＜2000 m/s). Top of the bedrock, whose velocities exceed 2000 m/s, appears to be at depth of 7.5∼10m. Higher resistivities (of ten thousands-hundred of thousands ohm-m) are interpreted to be associated with a open(cavities) gallery. The events at depth of approximately 0.5∼0.7m in GPR sections are probably caused by high-density-poly-ethylene geomembrane. Taking into consideration of the differences in the spatial resolution between georadar and electrical surveys, the events of geomembrane correspond to the top of the high resistivities at depth of about 2m. The segments, characterized with the higher conductivities in the electromagnetic data and the lower resistivities in the electrical resistivity data, are probably associated with surface water or tear zone of geomembrane.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.243-250
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• 2005

Analysis of high-resolution seismic profiles acquired from the inner shelf off the southern coast of Korea reveals that the inner shelf sequence can be divided into three stratigraphic units formed after the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Unit I is characterized by complex seismic facies including semi-transparent, stratified, and hummocky reflections on seismic records. It consists of sandy mud or muddy sand, deposited under estuarine environment during the post-glacial transgression. Unit II acoustically shows semi-transparent or hummocky reflections and consists of sand with gravels and shell debris, produced by shoreface erosion during the transgression. Unit III is characterized by transparent or semi-transparent seismic facies and consists of mud originated from the Nakdong and Seomjin rivers during recent highstand of sea level. Unit III is confined to the inner shelf with an extenal form of stratal wedge.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.187-201
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• 2014

Compared with the separated inversion of electromagnetic (EM) and seismic data, a joint inversion using both EM and seismic data reduces the uncertainty and gives the opportunity to use the advantage of each data. Seismic fullwaveform inversion allows velocity information with high resolution in complicated subsurface. However, it is an indirect survey which finds the structure containing oil and gas. On the other hand, marine controlled-source EM (mCSEM) inversion can directly indicate the oil and gas using different EM properties of hydrocarbon with marine sediments and cap rocks whereas it has poor resolution than seismic method. In this paper, we have developed a joint EM inversion algorithm using a cross-gradient technique. P-wave velocity structure obtained by full-waveform inversion using plane wave encoding is used as structure constraints to calculate the cross-gradient term in the joint inversion. When the jointinversion algorithm is applied to the synthetic data which are simulated for subsea reservoir exploration, images have been significantly improved over those obtained from separate EM inversion. The results indicate that the developed joint inversion scheme can be applied for detecting reservoir and calculating the accurate oil and gas reserves.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.234-241
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• 2011

Recently, exploration and development of oil sands are thriving due to high oil price. Because oil sands reservoir usually exists as a thin layer, multicomponent VSP, which has the advantage of the high-resolution around the borehole, is more effective than surface seismic survey in exploring oil sand reservoir. In addition, prestack phase-screen migration is effective for multicomponent seismic data because it is based on an one-way wave equation. In this study, we examined the applicability of the prestack phase-screen migration for multicomponent RVSP data to image the thin oil sand reservoir. As a preprocessing tool, we presented a method for separating P-wave and PS-wave from multicomponent RVSP data by using incidence angle and rotation matrix. To verify it, we have applied the developed wavefield separation method to synthetic data obtained from the velocity model including a horizontal layer and dipping layers. Also, we compared the migrated image by using P-wave with that by using PS-wave. As a result, the PS-wave migrated image has higher resolution and wide coverage than P-wave migrated image. Finally, we have applied the prestack phase-screen migration to the synthetic data from the velocity model simulating oil sand reservoir in Canada. The results show that the PS-wave migrated image describe the top and bottom boundaries of the thin oil sand reservoir more clearly than the P-wave migrated image.

• Journal of the Korean Geophysical Society
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.207-215
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• 2004

As the sea connecting with the East Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk is the most potential area of gas hydrates in the world. In other to examine geophysical structures of gas hydrate-bearing sediments in the Sea of Okhotsk, the CHAOS (hydro-Carbon Hydrate Accumulation in the Okhotsk) international research expedition was carried out in August 2003. In the expedition, high-resolution seismic and geochemical survey was also conducted. Sparker seismic profiles show only diffusive high-amplitude reflections without BSRs at BSR depth. It means that BSR appears to be completely different images on seismic profiles obtained using different frequencies. Many gas chimneys rise up from BSR depth to seafloor. The chimneys can be divided into two groups with different seismic characteristics; wipe-out (WO) and enhanced reflection (ER) chimneys. Different seismic responses in the chimneys would be caused by amount of gas and gas hydrates filling in the chimneys. In hydroacoustic data, a lot of gas flares rise up several hundreds meters from seafloor to the water column. All flares took placed at the depths within gas hydrate stability zone. It is interpreted that gas hydrate-bearing sediments with low porosity and permeability due to gas hydrate filling in the pore space make good pipe around gas chimneys in which gas is migrating up without loss of amount. Therefore, large-scale gas flare at the site on gas chimney releases into the water column.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.255-262
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• 2009

Conventionally, vertical-seismic-profiling (VSP) survey that provides high-resolution information has mainly performed to obtain the exact depth of the gas hydrate-bearing sediment, which is one of the key factors in the development of the gas hydrate. In this study, we extracted interval velocities and created corridor stacks from the first domestic zero-offset VSP data, which were acquired with three component receivers at UBGH09 borehole in Ulleung Basin where gas hydrate exists. Then we compared the corridor stacks with a CMP stacked section from surface seismic data. First of all, we converted the signals recorded with three component receivers to true vertical and horizontal components by phase rotation, and divided the data into direct waves and reflected waves by wavefield separation processing. The trend of the interval velocity extracted from the zero-offset VSP was similar to that of the sonic log obtained at the same borehole. Because the interval velocity of the gas hydrate-bearing sediment above the BSR was high, and it decreased suddenly through the BSR, we could infer that free gas is accumulated below the BSR. The results of comparing the corridor stacks to the CMP stacked section of the surface seismic data showed that most reflection events agreed well with those in the surface CMP stacked section and that the phase-rotated VSP data corresponded better with the surface seismic data than the VSP data without phase rotation. In addition, by comparing a corridor stack produced from the transverse component with the CMP stacked section of the surface seismic data, we could identify PS mode-converted reflections in the CMP stacked section.

• Journal of the Korean earth science society
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• v.24 no.8
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• pp.657-667
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• 2003

Deep-drilled core sampling and high-resolution seismic survey were carried out to identify a Holocene-late Pleistocene boundary in Gyeonggi Bay, western coast of Korea. Analysis of core sections revealed the existence of an oxidized and semi-consolidated sediment layer, Iying immediately below a Holocene horizon (Unit I) and being developed at the top of a late Pleistocene deposit (Unit II). The oxidized sedimentary layer (uppermost part of Unit II) is characterized by semi-consolidated, yellowish sediments showing signs of desiccation and alteration such as high N value, low water content, periglacial cryogenic structure, depletion of smectite, and high geochemical weathering index (Ba/Sr ratio). This feature, together with radiocarbon ages, suggests that the layer has formed as a result of prolonged subaerial exposure of Unit II sediments during the late Wisconsin sea-level lowstand, producing a regional unconformity. Such unconformitic-bounding surface corresponds to a prominent near-surface reflector (R), which is observed in seismic profiles obtained across the drilled-core sections in the study area. Consequently, the buried oxidized-sedimentary layer associated with the seismic reflector possibly plays a key horizon for the understanding of late Quaternary environmental changes as well as evidence of the emergence of the Yellow Sea shelf during the late Wisconsin sea-level lowstand.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.29 no.9
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• pp.17-29
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• 2013

The geophysical methods have an advantage for investigating the wide area with low cost, and thus the application of these methods has been increased. The objective of this paper estimates the characteristics of alluvium through the geophysical methods including elastic wave, electrical resistivity and ground penetration radar. And the standard penetration test is also carried out for verifying the geophysical data with comparison. The sources of elastic wave method are divided into hammer and sissy and the electrical resistivity method is applied with different sizes, shapes and arrays of electrode for deciding the effective way. The center frequency is determined to be 270 MHz for considering the characteristics of soil. The results of ground penetration radar are also compared with those of standard penetration test. The high resolution shows when the source is a sissy in elastic wave method, however, the water level is not identified. In the electrical resistivity method, the non-polarizable electrode and schlumberger array show highly reliable data and the resolution of ground penetration radar is low. Thus, the results of this study are widely applied for determining the appropriate method when investigating the characteristics of alluvium.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.1-14
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• 2008

We present a method for interpreting seismic records with arrivals and waveforms having characteristics which could be generated by extremely inhomogeneous velocity structures, such as non-typical oceanic crust, decollement at subduction zones, and seamounts in oceanic regions, by comparing them with synthetic waveforms. Recent extensive refraction and wide-angle reflection surveys in oceanic regions have provided us with a huge number of high-resolution and high-quality seismic records containing characteristic arrivals and waveforms, besides first arrivals and major reflected phases such as PmP. Some characteristic waveforms, with significant later reflected phases or anomalous amplitude decay with offset distance, are difficult to interpret using only a conventional interpretation method such as the traveltime tomographic inversion method. We find the best process for investigating such characteristic phases is to use an interactive interpretation method to compare observed data with synthetic waveforms, and calculate raypaths and traveltimes. This approach enables us to construct a reasonable structural model that includes all of the major characteristics of the observed waveforms. We present results here with some actual observed examples that might be of great help in the interpretation of such problematic phases. Our approach to the analysis of waveform characteristics is endorsed as an innovative method for constructing high-resolution and high-quality crustal structure models, not only in oceanic regions, but also in the continental regions.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.214-216
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• 2022

Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS), an increasingly growing acquisition technique in the oil and gas exploration and seismology fields, has been used to record seismic signals using optical cables as receivers. With the development of imaging methods for DAS data, full waveform inversion (FWI) is been applied to DAS data to obtain high-resolution property models such as P- and S-velocity. However, because the DAS systems measure strain from the phase distortion between two points along optical cables, DAS data must be transformed from strain to particle velocity for FWI algorithms. In this study, a plane-wave FWI algorithm based on the relationship between strain and horizontal particle velocity in the plane-wave assumption is proposed to apply FWI to DAS data. Under the plane-wave assumption, strain equals the horizontal particle velocity, which is scaled by the velocity at the receiver position. This relationship was confirmed using a numerical experiment. Furthermore, 4-layer and modified Marmousi-2 velocity models were used to verify the applicability of the proposed FWI algorithm in various survey environments. The proposed FWI was implemented in land and marine survey environments and provided high-resolution P- and S-velocity models.