Locating a buried cavity using ghost scattered waves in a scale-model experiment

Abstract

The investigation and detection of near-surface structures (cavities, caves, tunnels, mineshafts, buried objects, archeological ruins, water reservoir, etc.) is important to mitigate geo-and environmental hazards. We use a method inspired by seismic interferometry to estimate the location of a cavity in a scaled ultrasonic experiment, representative for geophysical field problems. We use only one source at the surface and retrieve ghost scattered waves by evaluating the correlation of scattered waves at different receiver locations. As an exploitation of the ghost arrival information, the ghost travel times are determined and combined to estimate the location of a cavity with good accuracy.