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Geophysics and Seismology Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

2009

Geosciences

Articles 1 - 9 of 9

Full-Text Articles in Geophysics and Seismology

Accurate Inversion Of High-Resolution Snow Penetrometer Signals For Microstructural And Micromechanical Properties, Hans-Peter Marshall, Jerome B. Johnson Nov 2009

Accurate Inversion Of High-Resolution Snow Penetrometer Signals For Microstructural And Micromechanical Properties, Hans-Peter Marshall, Jerome B. Johnson

CGISS Publications and Presentations

Measurements of snow using a high-resolution micropenetrometer can be used to discriminate between different snow types; in lower-density snow the signal is sensitive to microstructure, and micromechanical properties can be estimated. Although a physics-based snow penetration theory was first developed almost a decade ago, since that time the majority of studies using snow micropenetrometers have focused on using direct hardness measurements in statistical relationships. We use Monte-Carlo simulations to rigorously test the existing physics-based snow micropenetration theories over a wide range of parameters. These tests revealed four major sources of error in the inversion, which are corrected in this analysis. …


Infrasonic Ambient Noise Interferometry From Correlations Of Microbaroms, Matthew M. Haney Oct 2009

Infrasonic Ambient Noise Interferometry From Correlations Of Microbaroms, Matthew M. Haney

CGISS Publications and Presentations

We show that microbaroms, continuous infrasound fluctuations resulting from the interaction of the ocean with the atmosphere, have long-range correlation properties that make it possible to estimate the impulse response between two microphones from passive recordings. The processing is analogous to methods employed in the emerging field of ambient noise seismology, where the random noise source is the ocean coupling with the solid Earth (microseisms) instead of the atmosphere (microbaroms). We find that timedependent temperature fields and temperature inversions determine the character of infrasonic impulse responses at Fourpeaked Volcano in Alaska. Applications include imaging and monitoring the gross structure of …


Obtaining Parsimonious Hydraulic Conductivity Fields Using Head And Transport Observations: A Bayesian Geostatistical Parameter Estimation Approach, Michael Fienen, R. Hunt, D. Krabbenhoft, Tom Clemo Aug 2009

Obtaining Parsimonious Hydraulic Conductivity Fields Using Head And Transport Observations: A Bayesian Geostatistical Parameter Estimation Approach, Michael Fienen, R. Hunt, D. Krabbenhoft, Tom Clemo

CGISS Publications and Presentations

Flow path delineation is a valuable tool for interpreting the subsurface hydrogeochemical environment. Different types of data, such as groundwater flow and transport, inform different aspects of hydrogeologic parameter values (hydraulic conductivity in this case) which, in turn, determine flow paths. This work combines flow and transport information to estimate a unified set of hydrogeologic parameters using the Bayesian geostatistical inverse approach. Parameter flexibility is allowed by using a highly parameterized approach with the level of complexity informed by the data. Despite the effort to adhere to the ideal of minimal a priori structure imposed on the problem, extreme contrasts …


Complex Dielectric Permittivity Measurements From Ground-Penetrating Radar Data To Estimate Snow Liquid Water Content In The Pendular Regime, John H. Bradford, Joel T. Harper, Joel Brown Aug 2009

Complex Dielectric Permittivity Measurements From Ground-Penetrating Radar Data To Estimate Snow Liquid Water Content In The Pendular Regime, John H. Bradford, Joel T. Harper, Joel Brown

CGISS Publications and Presentations

Monitoring the snow water equivalent (SWE) is critical to effective management of water resources in many parts of the world that depend on the mountain snowpack for water storage. There are currently no methods to remotely sense SWE with accuracy over large lateral distances in the steep and often forested terrain of mountain basins. Previous studies have shown that measurements of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) velocity can provide accurate estimates of SWE in dry snow. Introduction of liquid water into the snowpack results in a three-phase system that cannot be accurately characterized with GPR velocity alone. We show that measuring the …


Seismic Wave Attenuation In Carbonates, Ludmila Adam, M. Batzle, K. T. Lewallen, Kasper Van Wijk Jun 2009

Seismic Wave Attenuation In Carbonates, Ludmila Adam, M. Batzle, K. T. Lewallen, Kasper Van Wijk

CGISS Publications and Presentations

The effect of pore fluids on seismic wave attenuation in carbonate rocks is important for interpreting remote sensing observations of carbonate reservoirs undergoing enhanced oil recovery. Here we measure the elastic moduli and attenuation in the laboratory for five carbonate samples with 20% to 30% porosity and permeability between 0.03 and 58.1 mdarcy. Contrary to most observations in sandstones, bulk compressibility losses dominate over shear wave losses for dry samples and samples fully saturated with either liquid butane or brine. This observation holds for four out of five samples at seismic (10–1000 Hz) and ultrasonic frequencies (0.8 MHz) and reservoir …


Observation And Modeling Of Source Effects In Coda Wave Interferometry At Pavlof Volcano, Matthew M. Haney, Kasper Van Wijk, Leiph A. Preston, David F. Aldridge May 2009

Observation And Modeling Of Source Effects In Coda Wave Interferometry At Pavlof Volcano, Matthew M. Haney, Kasper Van Wijk, Leiph A. Preston, David F. Aldridge

CGISS Publications and Presentations

We examine seismic records of repeating explosions from Pavlof volcano, Alaska, during its 2007 eruption. Repetitive explosions are typical of Strombolian-style eruptions and allow measurement of relative time shifts between similar late-arriving phases using the technique called coda wave interferometry (Snieder et al., 2002). The measurements enable the detection of small changes in the volcanic interior of Pavlof. We are able to resolve an increase in the relative traveltime change of late-arriving seismic waves on the order of 0.3% over the course of two weeks. Based on the spectra of the explosions, their location inside the magma conduit, previous studies …


Capacitive Conductivity Logging And Electrical Stratigraphy In A High-Resistivity Aquifer, Boise Hydrogeophysical Research Site, C. Jonathan Mwenifumbo, Warren Barrash, Michael D. Knoll Apr 2009

Capacitive Conductivity Logging And Electrical Stratigraphy In A High-Resistivity Aquifer, Boise Hydrogeophysical Research Site, C. Jonathan Mwenifumbo, Warren Barrash, Michael D. Knoll

CGISS Publications and Presentations

We tested a prototype capacitive-conductivity borehole tool in a shallow, unconfined aquifer with coarse, unconsolidated sediments and very-low-conductivity water at the Boise Hydrogeophysical Research Site (BHRS). Examining such a high-resistivity system provides a good test for the capacitive- conductivity tool because the conventional induction- conductivity tool (known to have limited effectiveness in high-resistivity systems) did not generate expressive well logs at the BHRS. The capacitive-conductivity tool demonstrated highly repeatable, low-noise behavior but poor correlation with the induction tool in the lower-conductivity portions of the stratigraphy where the induction tool was relatively unresponsive. Singular spectrum analysis of capacitive- conductivity logs reveals …


The Virtual Refraction: Useful Spurious Energy In Seismic Interferometry, Dylan Mikesell, Kasper Van Wijk, Alexander Calvert, Matthew M. Haney Apr 2009

The Virtual Refraction: Useful Spurious Energy In Seismic Interferometry, Dylan Mikesell, Kasper Van Wijk, Alexander Calvert, Matthew M. Haney

CGISS Publications and Presentations

Seismic interferometry is rapidly becoming an established technique to recover the Green’s function between receivers, but practical limitations in the source-energy distribution inevitably lead to spurious energy in the results. Instead of attempting to suppress all such energy, we use a spurious wave associated with the crosscorrelation of refracted energy at both receivers to infer estimates of subsurface parameters. We named this spurious event the virtual refraction. Illustrated by a numerical two-layer example, we found that the slope of the virtual refraction defines the velocity of the faster medium and that the stationary-phase point in the correlation gather provides the …


Estimating Porosity With Ground-Penetrating Radar Reflection Tomography: A Controlled 3-D Experiment At The Boise Hydrogeophysical Research Site, John H. Bradford, William P. Clement, Warren Barrash Feb 2009

Estimating Porosity With Ground-Penetrating Radar Reflection Tomography: A Controlled 3-D Experiment At The Boise Hydrogeophysical Research Site, John H. Bradford, William P. Clement, Warren Barrash

CGISS Publications and Presentations

To evaluate the uncertainty of water-saturated sediment velocity and porosity estimates derived from surface-based, ground-penetrating radar reflection tomography, we conducted a controlled field experiment at the Boise Hydrogeophysical Research Site (BHRS). The BHRS is an experimental well field located near Boise, Idaho. The experimental data set consisted of 3-D multioffset radar acquired on an orthogonal 20 × 30 m surface grid that encompassed a set of 13 boreholes. Experimental control included (1) 1-D vertical velocity functions determined from traveltime inversion of vertical radar profiles (VRP) and (2) neutron porosity logs. We estimated the porosity distribution in the saturated zone using …