TY - JOUR A1 - Walter, J. A1 - Hamann, Göran A1 - Lück, Erika A1 - Klingenfuss, C. A1 - Zeitz, Jutta T1 - Stratigraphy and soil properties of fens: Geophysical case studies from northeastern Germany JF - Catena : an interdisciplinary journal of soil science, hydrology, geomorphology focusing on geoecology and landscape evolution N2 - The determination of the total carbon storage of peatlands is of high relevance in the context of climate-change mitigation efforts. This determination relies on data about stratigraphy and peat properties, which are conventionally collected by coring. Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and electrical resistivity imaging (ERI) can support these point data by providing subsoil information in two-dimensional cross-sections. In this study, GPR and ERI were conducted at two groundwater-fed fen sites located in the temperate zone in north-east Germany. The fens of this region are embedded in low conductive glacial sand and are characterised by thick layers of gyttja, which can be either mineral or organic. The two study sites are representative of this region with respect to stratigraphy (total thickness, peat and gyttja types) and ecological conditions (pH-value, trophic condition). The aim of this study is to assess the suitability of GPR and ERI to detect stratigraphy and peat properties under these characteristic site conditions. Results show that GPR clearly detects the interfaces between (i) Carex and brown-moss peat, (ii) brown-moss peat and organic gyttja, (iii) organic- and mineral gyttja, and (iv) mineral gyttja and the parent material (glacial sand). These layers differ in bulk density and the related organic matter content. ERI, however, does not delineate these layers; rather it delineates regions of varying properties. At our base-rich site, pore fluid conductivity and cation.exchange capacity are the main factors that determine peat electrical conductivity (reverse of resistivity), whereas organic matter and water content are most influential at the more acidic site. Thus the correlation between peat properties and electrical conductivity are driven by site-specific conditions, which are mainly determined by the solute load in the groundwater at fens. When the total organic deposits exceed a thickness of 5 m, the depth of investigation by GPR is limited due to increasing attenuation. This is not a limiting factor for ERI, where the transition from organic deposits to glacial sand is visible at both sites. Due to these specific sensitivities, a combined application of GPR and ERI meets the demand for up-to-date information on carbon storage of peatlands, which is, moreover, very site-specific because of the inherent variety of ecological conditions and stratigraphy between peatlands in general and between fens and bogs in particular. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. KW - Fen stratigraphy KW - Peat properties KW - Gyttja KW - Ground penetrating radar KW - Electrical conductivity KW - Electrical resistivity imaging Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2016.02.028 SN - 0341-8162 SN - 1872-6887 VL - 142 SP - 112 EP - 125 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Tronicke, Jens A1 - Hamann, Göran T1 - Vertical radar profiling: Combined analysis of traveltimes, amplitudes, and reflections JF - Geophysics N2 - Vertical radar profiling (VRP) is a single-borehole geophysical technique, in which the receiver antenna is located within a borehole and the transmitter antenna is placed at one or various offsets from the borehole. Today, VRP surveying is primarily used to derive 1D velocity models by inverting the arrival times of direct waves. Using field data collected at a well-constrained test site in Germany, we evaluated a VRP workflow relying on the analysis of direct-arrival traveltimes and amplitudes as well as on imaging reflection events. To invert our VRP traveltime data, we used a global inversion strategy resulting in an ensemble of acceptable velocity models, and thus, it allowed us to appraise uncertainty issues in the estimated velocities as well as in porosity models derived via petrophysical translations. In addition to traveltime inversion, the analysis of direct-wave amplitudes and reflection events provided further valuable information regarding subsurface properties and architecture. The used VRP amplitude preprocessing and inversion procedures were adapted from raybased crosshole ground-penetrating radar (GPR) attenuation tomography and resulted in an attenuation model, which can be used to estimate variations in electrical resistivity. Our VRP reflection imaging approach relied on corridor stacking, which is a well-established processing sequence in vertical seismic profiling. The resulting reflection image outlines bounding layers and can be directly compared to surface-based GPR reflection profiling. Our results of the combined analysis of VRP, traveltimes, amplitudes, and reflections were consistent with independent core and borehole logs as well as GPR reflection profiles, which enabled us to derive a detailed hydro-stratigraphic model as needed, for example, to understand and model groundwater flow and transport. Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1190/GEO2013-0428.1 SN - 0016-8033 SN - 1942-2156 VL - 79 IS - 4 SP - H23 EP - H35 PB - Society of Exploration Geophysicists CY - Tulsa ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hamann, Göran A1 - Tronicke, Jens T1 - Global inversion of GPR traveltimes to assess uncertainties in CMP velocity models JF - Near surface geophysics N2 - Velocity models are essential to process two-and three-dimensional ground-penetrating radar (GPR) data. Furthermore, velocity information aids the interpretation of such data sets because velocity variations reflect important material properties such as water content. In many GPR applications, common midpoint (CMP) surveys are routinely collected to determine one-dimensional velocity models at selected locations. To analyse CMP data gathers, spectral velocity analyses relying on the normal-moveout (NMO) model are commonly employed. Using Dix's formula, the derived NMO velocities can be further converted to interval velocities which are needed for processing and interpretation. Because of the inherent assumptions and limitations of such approaches, we investigate and propose an alternative procedure based on the global inversion of reflection travel-times. We use a finite-difference solver of the Eikonal equation to accurately solve the forward problem in combination with particle swarm optimization (PSO) to find one-dimensional GPR velocity models explaining our data. Because PSO is a robust and efficient global optimization tool, our inversion approach includes generating an ensemble of representative solutions that allows us to analyse uncertainties in the model space. Using synthetic data examples, we test and evaluate our inversion approach to analyse CMP data collected across typical near-surface environments. Application to a field data set recorded at a well-constrained test site including a comparison to independent borehole and direct-push data, further illustrates the potential of the proposed approach, which includes a straightforward and understandable appraisal of non-uniqueness and uncertainty issues, respectively. We conclude that our methodology is a feasible and powerful tool to analyse GPR CMP data and allows practitioners and researchers to evaluate the reliability of CMP derived velocity models. Y1 - 2014 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3997/1873-0604.2014005 SN - 1569-4445 SN - 1873-0604 VL - 12 IS - 4 SP - 505 EP - 514 PB - European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers CY - Houten ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hamann, Göran A1 - Tronicke, Jens A1 - Steelman, Colby M. A1 - Endres, Anthony L. T1 - Spectral velocity analysis for the determination of ground-wave velocities and their uncertainties in multi-offset GPR data JF - Near surface geophysics N2 - In many hydrological applications, ground-wave velocity measurements are increasingly used to map and monitor shallow soil water content. In this study, we propose an automated spectral velocity analysis method to determine the direct ground-wave (DGW) velocity from common midpoint (CMP) or multi-offset ground-penetrating radar (GPR) data. The method introduced in this paper is a variation of the well-known spectral velocity analysis for seismic and GPR reflection events where velocity spectra are computed using different coherency measures along hyperbolas following the normal moveout model. Here, the unnormalized cross-correlation is computed between waveforms across data gathers that are corrected with a linear moveout equation using a predefined range of velocities. Peaks in the resulting velocity spectra identify linear events in the GPR data gathers like DGW events and allow for estimating the corresponding velocities. In addition to obtaining a DGW velocity measurement, we propose a robust method to estimate the associated velocity uncertainties based on the width of the peak in the calculated velocity spectrum. Our proposed method is tested on synthetic data examples to evaluate the influence of subsurface velocity, surveying geometry and signal frequency on the accuracy of estimated ground-wave velocities. In addition, we investigate the influence of such velocity uncertainties on subsequent soil water content estimates using an established petrophysical relationship. Furthermore, we apply our approach to analyse field data, which were collected across a test site in Canada to monitor a wide range of seasonal soil moisture variations. A comparison between our spectral velocity estimates and results derived from manually picked ground-wave arrivals shows good agreement, which illustrates that our spectral velocity analysis is a feasible tool to analyse DGW arrivals in multi-offset GPR data gathers in an objective and more automated manner. Y1 - 2013 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3997/1873-0604.2012038 SN - 1569-4445 VL - 11 IS - 2 SP - 167 EP - 176 PB - European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers CY - Houten ER -