Publications

During the past several years, there has been a growing recognition of the threats posed by the use of shallow tunnels against both international border security and the integrity of critical facilities. This has led to the development and testing of a variety of geophysical and surveillance techniques for the detection of these clandestine tunnels. The challenges of detection of these tunnels arising from the complexity of the near surface environment, the subtlety of the tunnel signatures themselves, and the frequent siting of these tunnels in urban environments with a high level of cultural noise, have time and again shown that any single technique is not robust enough to solve the tunnel detection problem in all cases. The question then arises as to how to best combine the multiple techniques currently available to create an integrated system that results in the best chance of detecting these tunnels in a variety of clutter environments and geologies. This study utilizes Taguchi analysis with simulated sensor detection performance to address this question. The analysis results show that ambient noise has the most effect on detection performance over the effects of tunnel characteristics and geological factors.

Spatially-distributed arrays of seismometers are often utilized to infer the speed and direction of incident seismic waves. Conventionally, individual seismometers of the array measure one or more orthogonal components of rectilinear particle motion (displacement, velocity, or acceleration). The present work demonstrates that measure of both the particle velocity vector and the particle rotation vector at a single point receiver yields sufficient information to discern the type (compressional or shear), speed, and direction of an incident plane seismic wave. Hence, the approach offers the intriguing possibility of dispensing with spatially-extended received arrays, with their many problematic deployment, maintenance, relocation, and post-acquisition data processing issues. This study outlines straightforward mathematical theory underlying the point seismic array concept, and implements a simple cross-correlation scanning algorithm for determining the azimuth of incident seismic waves from measured acceleration and rotation rate data. The algorithm is successfully applied to synthetic seismic data generated by an advanced finite-difference seismic wave propagation modeling algorithm. Application of the same azimuth scanning approach to data acquired at a site near Yucca Mountain, Nevada yields ambiguous, albeit encouraging, results. Practical issues associated with rotational seismometry are recognized as important, but are not addressed in this investigation.

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Sedimentary basins can increase the magnitude and extend the duration of seismic shaking. This potential for seismic amplification is investigated for Pahrump Valley, Nevada-California. The Pahrump Valley is located approximately 50 km northwest of Las Vegas and 75 km south of the Nevada Test Site. Gravity data suggest that the city of Pahrump sits atop a narrow, approximately 5 km deep sub-basin within the valley. The seismic amplification, or ''site effect'', was investigated using a combination of in situ velocity modeling and comparison of the waveforms and spectra of weak ground motion recorded in the city of Pahrump, Nevada, and those recorded in the nearby mountains. Resulting spectral ratios indicate seismic amplification factors of 3-6 over the deepest portion of Pahrump Valley. This amplification predominantly occurs at 2-2.5 Hz. Amplification over the deep sub-basin is lower than amplification at the sub-basin edge, location of the John Blume and Associates PAHA seismic station, which recorded many underground nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site. A comprehensive analysis of basin amplification for the city of Pahrump should include 3-D basin modeling, due to the extreme basement topography of the Pahrump Valley.