• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.34-40
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• 2008

Underwater seismic refraction with advanced interpretation approaches makes important contributions to shallow marine exploration and geotechnical investigations in Australia's coastal areas. A series of case studies are presented to demonstrate the recent applications of continuous and static USR methods to river crossing and port infrastructure projects at various sites around Australia. In Sydney, static underwater seismic refraction (USR) with bottom-placed receivers and borehole seismic imaging assisted the development of improved geotechnical models that reduced construction risk for a tunnel crossing of the Lane Cove River. In Melbourne, combining conventional boomer reflection and continuous USR with near-bottom sources and receivers improved the definition of a buried, variably weathered basalt flow and assisted dredging assessment for navigation channel upgrades at Geelong Ports. Sand quality assessment with continuous USR and widely spaced borehole information assisted commercial decisions on available sand resources for the reclamation phase of development at the Port of Brisbane. Buried reefs and indurated layers occur in Australian coastal sediments with the characteristics of laterally limited, high velocity, cap layers within lower velocity materials. If these features are not recognised then significant error in depth determination to deeper refractors can occur. Application of advanced refraction inversion using wavefront eikonal tomography to continuous USR data obtained along the route of a proposed offshore pipeline near Fremantle allowed these layers and the underlying bedrock refractor to be accurately imaged. Static USR and the same interpretation approach was used to image the drowned granitic regolith beneath sediments and indurated layers in the northern area of Western Australia at a proposed new berthing site where deep piling was required. This allowed preferred piling sites to be identified, reducing overall pile lengths. USR can be expected to find increased application to shallow marine exploration and geotechnical investigations in Australia's coastal areas as economic growth continues and improved interpretation methods are developed.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.92-101
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• 2012

Three-dimensional finite-difference simulation in a small-scale half-sphere basin with planar free-surface is performed for an arbitrary shear-dislocation point source. A new scheme to deal with free-surface boundary condition is presented. Then basin parameters are examined to understand main characteristics on ground-motion response in the basin. To analyze the frequency content of ground motion in the basin, spectral amplitudes are compared with each other for four sites inside and outside the basin. Also particle motions for those sites are examined to find which kind of wave plays a dominant role in ground-motion response. The results show that seismic energy is concentrated on a marginal area of the basin far from the source. This focusing effect is mainly due to constructive interference of the direct Swave with basin-edge induced surface waves. Also, ground-motion amplification over the deepest part of the basin is relatively lower than that above shallow basin edge. In the small-scale basin with relatively simple bedrock interface, therefore, the ground-motion amplification may be more related to the source azimuth or direction of the incident waves into the basin rather than depth of it.

• 한국지구물리탐사학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2002.09a
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• pp.101-125
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• 2002

A lake seismic survey was carried out to investigate possible geohazards for construction of the underground LPG storage at Namyang Lake. The proposed survey site has a land-lake combined geography and furthermore water depth of the lake is shallow. Therefore, various seismic methods such as marine single channel high resolution seismic reflection survey, sonobuoy refraction survey, land refraction survey and land-lake combined refraction survey were applied. Total survey amounts are 34 line-km of high resolution lake seismic survey, 14 lines of sonobuoy refraction survey, 890 m of land refraction survey and 8 lines of land-lake combined refraction survey. During the reflection survey, there were severe water reverberations from the lake bottom obscured subsurface profiling. These strong multiple events appeared in most of the survey area except the northern and southern area near the embankment where seems to be accumulated mainly mud dominated depositions. The sonobuoy refraction profiles also showed the same Phenomena as those of reflection survey. Meanwhile the results of the land-lake combined refraction survey showed relatively better qualities. However, the land refraction survey did not so due to low velocity soil layer and electrical noise. Summarized results from the lake seismic survey are that acoustic basement with relatively flat pattern appeared 30m below water level and showed three types of bedrock such as fresh, moderately weathered and weathered type. According to the results of the combined refraction survey, a velocity distribution pattern of the lake bottom shows three types of seismic velocity zone such as >4.5 km/s, 4.5-4.0km/s and <4.0km/s. The major fault lineament in the area showed NW-SE trend which was different from the Landsat image interpretation. A drilling was confirmed estimated faults by seismic survey.