Fast 3D Ultra Shallow Seismic Reflection imaging using portable geophone mount

We present the results of three different seismic experiments designed to develop and evaluate the use of 3D Ultra Shallow Seismic Reflection for high-resolution near-surface imaging. A feasibility study and the first implementation of a 2D portable geophone mount for fast and cost-effective ultra-shallow 3D seismic data acquisition are discussed. The portable geophone mount is made out of an anelastic base with a frame and an array of 72 geophones spaced with an interval of 0.25m both in the inline and crossline direction. The array enables acquisition of very high-resolution 3D data cubes with bin size of 12.5x12.5cm and wavelets of 350Hz. The time for re-planting the 72-channels portable geophone mount is about 5min in the field. Thus, we show that high-resolution near-surface 3D images can be obtained fast and in a cost-effective manner. This has the potential of providing effective solutions for many geotechnical and geoenvironmental applications.