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Application of surface‐wave tomography to mineral exploration: a case study from Siilinjärvi, Finland
Author(s) -
Da Col Federico,
Papadopoulou Myrto,
Koivisto Emilia,
Sito Łukasz,
Savolainen Mikko,
Socco Laura Valentina
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
geophysical prospecting
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.735
H-Index - 79
eISSN - 1365-2478
pISSN - 0016-8025
DOI - 10.1111/1365-2478.12903
Subject(s) - geology , tomography , borehole , mineral exploration , computation , seismology , economic geology , software deployment , surface wave , tectonics , mineralogy , geodesy , geophysics , algorithm , computer science , geotechnical engineering , optics , physics , telecommunications , operating system , telmatology
In order to assess the feasibility and validity of surface‐wave tomography as a tool for mineral exploration, we present an active seismic three‐dimensional case study from the Siilinjärvi mine in Eastern Finland. The aim of the survey is to identify the formation carrying the mineralization in an area south of the main pit, which will be mined in the future. Before acquiring the data, we performed an accurate survey design to maximize data coverage and minimize the time for deployment and recollection of the equipment. We extract path‐averaged Rayleigh‐wave phase‐velocity dispersion curves by means of a two‐station method. We invert them using a computationally efficient tomographic code which does not require the computation of phase‐velocity maps and inverts directly for one‐dimensional S‐wave velocity models. The retrieved velocities are in good agreement with the data from a borehole in the vicinity, and the pseudo three–dimensional S‐wave velocity volume allows us to identify the geological contact between the formation hosting most of the mineralization and the surrounding rock. We conclude that the proposed method is a valid tool, given the small amount of equipment used and the acceptable amount of time required to process the data.