Fractures and rock properties estimated by 3D directional borehole radar
Borehole radar is widely used in civil engineering work such as fault and fracture exploration, salt dome investigation, tunnel detection, UXO detection, exploring locations of foundation piles and sheet metal piling walls, and so on. Borehole radar surveys in resistive rock field have been applied successfully due to the lower attenuation of the rock media. Through those studies, many researchers have become interested in the detectability of thin open fractures and their locations. Though there are some numerical computing studies [1] on its detectability related to the open widths of fractures, there are very few experimental field studies. Thus studies using directional borehole radar system are essentially required at borehole sites where geometrical features and open widths of the fractures are well investigated. We are conducting experimental evaluation surveys for our 3D directional borehole radar system, “ReflexTracker®”. In soft ground in an alluvial plain, a single-hole measurement was carried out to evaluate the detection ability of a conductive cylinder buried 2m from the survey hole and found that the system could detect 3D reflectors representing the target and provided information on the direction of arrival wave and distance to the target [2]. We conducted another experimental measurement to evaluate fracture detectability of the system in rock field. The experimental borehole (BOA-200), a vertical borehole with diameter of 86-115 mm reaching 200 m depth in andesite rock, is located in a rock quarry in Ishikoshi Town, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. Fractures in the borehole and their geometrical features such as strikes, dips and open widths were investigated in detail by borehole scanner [3], and the electrical characteristics were also obtained by a logging survey for all depths. The radargrams obtained by the non-directional antenna indicate that the arrival times and amplitudes were clearly related to rock mass classification and fracture densities, i.e., the higher the density, the larger the amplitude and the earlier the arrival time. Moreover, interpreted relative permittivities were negatively correlated with resistivities. On the other hand, the interpreted 3D reflectors derived from the directional antenna resulted in significantly good fitting with some of the known fractures' extended planes. Through the experimental study in the rock field, the ReflexTracker shows high potential for applications in fracture extractions and rock property investigations.
Estimating the 3D position and inclination of a planar interface with a directional borehole radar
In this paper, we present a signal processing method suitable for estimating the position of a planar interface and its inclination using a directional borehole radar. The receiving directive antenna in a radar system is a coaxial-fed circular dipole array antenna in a borehole (CFCAB), which we have proposed previously. The method combines least-square fitting with a model of plane-wave incidence and uses an inverse boundary scattering transform. This approach makes it possible to estimate parameters from measurements collected at only two narrowly separated depths of a radar sonde. We give a numerical example to verify the proposed method. In this simulation, the array data were generated with the Method of Moments modified for a borehole radar. We conducted field experiments in the Nakatatsu mine in Japan, where there is a fault in the skarn. We constructed a 3D image of the fault with a directional borehole radar and the signal processing method. The image agrees well with the information obtained from boring core samples and observations in the gallery.
Time lapse photography of clouds from high altitude balloons.
Time lapse pictures of clouds taken by cameras flown at altitudes of 30 km on balloons provide valuable insights into the convection and electrification of cloud systems. Simple camera arrangements for taking such pictures are described.