Seismic reflection and ground‐penetrating radar imaging of a shallow aquifer

Abstract

In 1995 and 1996, researchers associated with the US Air Force’s Phillips and Armstrong Laboratories took part in an extensive geophysical site characterization of the Groundwater Remediation Field Laboratory located at Dover Air Force Base, Dover, Delaware. This field experiment offered an opportunity to compare shallow‐reflection profiling using seismic compressional sources and low‐frequency ground‐penetrating radar to image a shallow, unconfined aquifer. The main target within the aquifer was the sand‐clay interface defining the top of the underlying aquitard at 10 to 14 m depth. Although the water table in a well near the site was 8 m deep, cone penetration geotechnical data taken across the field do not reveal a distinct water table. Instead, cone penetration tests show a gradual change in electrical properties that we interpret as a thick zone of partial saturation. Comparing the seismic and radar data and using the geotechnical data as ground truth, we have associated the deepest coherent event in both reflection data sets with the sand‐clay aquitard boundary. Cone penetrometer data show the presence of a thin lens of clays and silts at about 4 m depth in the north part of the field. This shallow clay is not imaged clearly in the low‐frequency radar profiles. However, the seismic data do image the clay lens. Cone penetrometer data detail a clear change in the soil classification related to the underlying clay aquitard at the same position where the nonintrusive geophysical measurements show a change in image character. Corresponding features in the seismic and radar images are similar along profiles from common survey lines, and results of joint interpretation are consistent with information from geotechnical data across the site.