We are a research group in the
Department of Geological, Environmental and Marine Sciences, University of
Trieste. Our areas of interest lie mainly in the use of geophysical
surveying to investigate the nature of the Earth's crust. Much of our
research is directly applicable and is actually applied to solve problems in
archaeology, hydrocarbon exploration, engineering and environmental
investigation. We have recently participated in the following
major field experiments:
-Onshore and offshore NVR and WARR seismic surveys off the Pacific Coast of
the Antarctic Peninsula.
-Onshore and offshore NVR and WARR seismic surveys off the Italian Coast [National
Research Programme Deep
Crust (CROP) for which our group is scientific responsible and coordinator
of the marine leg].
-Offshore NVR seismic surveys in the Ross Sea and Scotia Sea areas (Antarctica).
-Ground Penetrating Radar multi-fold 2-D and 3-D surveys of LNAPL
contaminated areas (project supported by the
National Fund for the Protection against Industrial, Chemical and Ecological
Hazards)
-Ground Penetrating Radar multi-fold 2-D and
3-D surveys of archaeological sites in Italy (project supported by the
National Cultural Heritage Research Programme).
-Ground Penetrating Radar multi-fold 2-D and 3-D surveys of archaeological
sites in Kazakhstan, Peru', Israel (international scientific programmes).
-Integrated Acoustic - Ground Penetrating Radar survey of the Cheko Lake in
Russia (international scientific programme).
-Ground Penetrating Radar multi-fold 2-D and 3-D surveys to locate shallow
subsurface utilities in hostile soil conditions (Venice and Trieste area,
national research programme).
We also actively research the theoretical
aspects of seismic and georadar exploration of the crust. Some of our
current areas of interest include multiple attenuation, AVO analysis and
theoretical models for EM wave propagation, polarization analysis applied to
GPR, depth imaging in thrust belt areas.
A wide range of research projects are underway,
funded by a variety of sources including; CNR, MURST, the European Union,
the Cultural Heritage Ministry.
NEAR SURFACE AND GPR RESEARCH GROUP
Our areas of interest lie mainly in the use of
georadar and acoustic techniques to investigate the nature of the Earth's
shallow crust. Our current major field experiments and theoretical research
activities focus on the study of archaeological and contaminated (LNAPL)
sites and on the location of shallow subsurface utilities (pipes, cables) in
hostile soil conditions. Further research topics are:
-Fresh water basins high resolution surveys.
-Fracture location in metric size stone blocks from quarries.
-Joint palaeontological-geophysical study of unconformities (e.g.
Cretaceous-Tertiary in carbonate platforms).
-Study of the strike-slip deformation of the Northern Victoria Land
Antarctica from land GPR and marine seismic data.
-Humanitarian Demining.
We have seismic and GPR instruments and most of
the processing and interpretation software we use is developed in house. Our
processing centre is equipped with a state-of-the-art network of servers and
workstations.
Our research projects:
The following research projects are based on the theoretical and
methodological research of our group in the field of multi-fold/multi-offset
GPR data processing and interpretation.
1. CULTURAL HERITAGE
a. Italy
The National Cultural Heritage Research Programme and several
Archaeological Suprintendencies from all over Italy support our research
work on the development and application of multi-fold GPR techniques to
study archaeological sites. Since the beginning of our research activity in
this field (1993), we have successfully completed more than 30 2-D/3-D
multi-fold studies. A large part of them was followed by archaeological
excavation which validated the interpretation of the GPR profiles. Figs.1
and 2 show two examples from recent surveys of the Aquileia Archaeological
Park in northern Italy.
b. Kazakhstan
We participated in a international archaeological-geophysical
expedition to southern Kazakhstan. Two tombs of the Iron Age (Saka period)
were discovered and successfully excavated based on the results of the
multi-fold GPR profiles (Fig.3).
c. Peru'
The objective of the 1998 expedition to northern Peru' was the study
of large pyramids of the Moche culture. A new important discovery was made
after the georadar surveys of the Sipan site (Fig.4).
d. Israel
This project aims at the study of two archaeological sites (Khirbet
Ain Fattir and Khirbet Jiljil) where documentary evidences indicate the
likely location of important necropolises. The first expedition was
completed during summer 1999 and the results will be shortly issued.
2. CONTAMINANTS
The project aims at the development and application of
Ultra-High-Resolution (UHR) GPR techniques to detect liquid contaminants and
monitor their diffusion. The research focusses on field experiments,
development of processing tools suited to image discontinuities rapidly
varying in time and space, theoretical study of the variations of the
reflection coefficients betweeen water and LNAPL saturated soils,
simulations and laboratory measurements. Several 4-D GPR multifold
experiments have been carried out to date. An example of the results
obtained during controlled injection of 100 litres of gasoline is shown in
Fig. 5. Joint ultra-shallow seismic experiments with an innovative source
were recently completed and the data are currently being processed.
3. UTILITIES
A large project is being carried out with the support of an
industrial consortium. The aim is the high resolution mapping of shallow (30
to 80 cm) subsurface utilities buried in clayey soils. After preliminary
tests to assess the penetration limits of the high frequency radar waves,
necessary to image such shallow targets, an extensive 3-D programme has been
carried out. The focus from the processing standpoint is in the development
of ad hoc deconvolution algorithms to enhance the vertical resolution in
highly dispersive media. Fig.6 shows an example of the results of a blind
test with the actual location of the searched for utilities.
4. FRACTURES
The research is supported by the local industry and aims at the study
of large volumes of stone scheduled to be cut. The results obtained to date
allow high resolution imaging of discontinuities associated to bedding and
fracture.
5. WATER BASINS
Several surveys were performed in lakes and rivers of our region to
test the sub-bottom imaging potential of GPR and develop processing
techniques suited for the high resolution shallow stratigraphy study. The
next step on this research topic is the integration of acoustic techniques
and GPR to improve resolution and penetration and perform a joint inversion
of the elastic and electric parameters of the ground. On the basis of such
experiments, we were invited to survey a lake at the Tunguska Meteorite Site
(Russia) in the framework of an international expedition to the area. The
first results of such expedition have been published in the proceedings of
the international conference on Ground Penetrating radar GPR2000
(Australia).
6. ANTARCTICA
A joint seismic-GPR exploration project is being carried out to
reconstruct the subglacial topography and the main geomorphological and
geological features related to the Meso-Cenozoic evolution of the Northern
Victoria Land (Antarctica). Such reconstruction is of interest to correlate
the offshore structural features, to study the projections of the regional
transform faults of the Southern Ocean, to study the Meso-Cenozoic magmatic
activity and the evolution of the East Antarctic ice sheet (Pacific Sector).
7. HUMANITARIAN DEMINING
A research programme has just started which focusses on the
development of automated multi-offset, -azimuth and polarization GPR
techniques for the identification of AP mines
