Active source seismic imaging on near-surface granite body:case study of siting a geological disposal repository for high-level radioactive nuclear waste

In order to research whether it is suitable to set a geological disposal repository for high-level radioactive nuclear waste into one target granite body,two active source seismic profles were arranged near a small town named Tamusu,Western China.The study area is with complex surface conditions,thus the seismic exploration encountered a variettraveltimey of technical difculties such as crossing obstacles,de-noising harmful scattered waves,and building complex near-surface velocity models.In order to address those problems,techniques including cross-obstacle seismic geometry design,angle-domain harmful scattered noise removal,and an acoustic wave equation-based inversion method jointly utilizing both the and waveform of frst arrival waves were adopted.The fnal seismic images clearly exhibit the target rock’s unconformable contact boundary and its top interface beneath the sedimentary and weathered layers.On this basis,it could be confrmed that the target rock is not thin or has been transported by geological process from somewhere else,but a native and massive rock.There are a few small size fractures whose space distribution could be revealed by seismic images within the rock.The fractures should be kept away.Based on current research,it could be considered that active source seismic exploration is demanded during the sitting process of the geological disposal repository for nuclear waste.The seismic acquisition and processing techniques proposed in the present paper would ofer a good reference value for similar researches in the future.

Preface to the Special Issue on Advances in Seismic Exploration and Monitoring with Active Sources in China

Analyzing the information carriede by seismic waves is a major means for human beings to have an insight into the structure of the earth’s interior,and by using artificial seismic sources to excite seismic waves,we can obtain high-resolution images for the crustal and smaller scale medium.Artificial seismic exploration methods have been widely applied to fields such as

A new approach to numerical simulation of source development of earthquake

By considering the heterogeneity of geomechanical materials, the source development of earthquake under compression boundary conditions is studied with a newly developed numerical method, Rock Failure Process Analysis code (RFPA2D). The process of fault forming and associated micro seismicities in a rectangle area with a inclusion but without any clear structural features of original fault is modeled. The modeling demonstrates the whole process of source development of earthquake from deformation, micro failure to collapse and the behavior of temporal spatial distribution of micro seismicities. The stress, strain and the temporal spatial distribution of micro seismicities vividly depict the phenomena of localization, temporal transitions, dilatation or rise, elastic rebound and conjugate (X type) deformation zone.

Upper Crustal Velocity Structure along the Yangtze River from Ma'anshan to Anqing

We applied the 3D first arrival travel time tomography method to the Anhui active seismic source experiment data,and obtained the imaging of the upper crust velocity structure beneath the Yangtze River from Ma'anshan,Tongling to Anqing. Data fitting reveals the tomographic model fits the data with uncertainties, without overfitting, and with a minimum of complexity. The tomographic result shows an obvious heterogeneous upper crust which consists of a series of uplifts and depression basins. The velocity model and region imply that this region has experienced crustal uplift and extensional tectonism with concomitant magmatism since the Cenozoic.