DAS for 2-D MASW imaging: a case study on the benefits of flexible subarray processing

Abstract

SUMMARY Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) is a relatively new technology for recording the propagation of seismic waves, with promising applications in both engineering and geophysics. DAS's ability to simultaneously collect high spatial resolution waveforms over long arrays suggests that it is well-suited for near-surface imaging applications such as 2-D multichannel analysis of surface waves (MASWs), which require, at a minimum, long, linear arrays of single-component receivers. The 2-D MASW method uses a large number of sensor subarrays deployed along a linear alignment to produce 1-D shear-wave velocity (VS) profiles beneath each subarray. The 1-D VS profiles are then combined to form a pseudo-2-D VS image beneath the entire linear alignment that can be used for the purpose of identifying and characterizing lateral variations in subsurface layering. Traditionally, 2-D MASW is conducted using arrays consisting of either 24 or 48 geophones. While additional receivers could easily be incorporated into the testing configuration, it is rare for researchers and practitioners to have access to greater numbers of seismographs and geophones. When a limited number of geophones are available for deployment, there is a need to pre-determine the geophone spacing and subarray length prior to field data acquisition. Studies examining how the choice of subarray geometry impacts the resulting pseudo-2-D VS cross-sections have been largely limited to synthetic data. In response, this study utilizes DAS data to examine the effects of using various subarray lengths by comparing pseudo-2-D VS cross-sections derived from active-source waveforms collected at a well-characterized field site. DAS is particularly useful for 2-D MASW applications because the subarray geometry does not need to be determined prior to field data acquisition. We organize the DAS waveforms into multiple sets of overlapping MASW subarrays of differing lengths, ranging from 11 to 47 m, along the same alignment, allowing for direct comparison of the derived pseudo-2-D VS results at the site. We show that the length of the individual MASW subarrays has a significant effect on the resulting VS cross-sections, including the resolved location of a strong impedance contrasts at our study site, and evaluate the results relative to ground truth from invasive testing. Our results suggest that the choice of subarray length is important and should be carefully chosen to meet project-specific goals. Furthermore, analysts may consider using multiple subarray geometries during the data processing stage, as is made possible by DAS, to properly evaluate the uncertainty of 2-D MASW results. This study demonstrates the potential of using DAS to collect data for 2-D MASW in a manner that is efficient and flexible, and can be easily scaled up for use with very long arrays.