Publications Details

The Feasibility of Monitoring Continuous Wave Sources with Seismic Arrays

Claassen, J.P.

This paper identifies and explores the technical requirements and issues associated with remotely monitoring continuous wave (CW) sources with seismic arrays. Potential approaches to this monitoring problem will be suggested and partially evaluated to expose the monitoring challenges which arise when realistic local geologies and cultural noise sources are considered. The selective directionality and the adaptive noise cancellation properties of arrays are required to observe weak signals while suppressing a colored background punctuated with an unknown distribution of point and sometimes distributive sources. The array is also required to characterize the emitters and propagation environment so as to properly focus on the CW sources of interest while suppressing the remaining emitters. The proper application of arrays requires an appreciation of the complexity of propagation in a non-homogeneous earth. The heterogeneity often limits the available spatial coherence and therefore the size of the army. This adversely impacts the array gain and the array's ability to carefully resolve various emitters. Arrays must also contend with multipath induced by the source and the heterogeneous earth. If the array is to focus on an emitter and realize an enhancement in the signal to noise ratio, methods must be sought to coherently add the desired signal components while suppressing interference which may be correlated with the desired signal. The impact of these and other issues on army design and processing are described and discussed.