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Remote Characterisation of Shallow Marine Sediments - Current Status and Future Questions
- Publisher: European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers
- Source: Conference Proceedings, Near Surface Geoscience 2016 - Second Applied Shallow Marine Geophysics Conference, Sep 2016, Volume 2016, p.1 - 5
Abstract
Marine geophysical techniques are a staple tool for shallow section site investigation. Very- and Ultra-High-Resolution (VHR and UHR) seismic reflection imaging using Chirp, boomer, sparker and small airgun sources is a particularly common technique, employed the world-over for site investigations in a huge range of water depths, substrates, and environments. Seismic reflection profiling is relatively fast, cheap, and flexible, permitting the acquisition of surveys to target everything from decimetre-scale object detection to large-scale geological ground model building. However, these data are almost always interpreted in a purely qualitative manner, providing information on the spatial variation in facies boundaries, but no quantitative information on the composition (and spatial variation in composition) of said facies. In both industry and academia, quantitative information regarding the particular geological and geotechnical makeup of the subsurface is predominantly derived from direct sampling with cores, boreholes, and cone penetrometers.
I present a summary of the published research on quantitative imaging of the shallow subsurface. I look at the different inversion methods that have been developed and the soil/sediment properties derived. I will conclude by discussing the major outstanding questions and propose some potential pathways forward that may bring site investigation more in line with hydrocarbon prospection.