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Exploration archaeology
searching for our past
John M. Stanley
Geotech
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buried tombs and building sites containing walls or similar large structures.
Seismology has been successfully used
to locate underground passages and
tomb cavities within the Egyptian pyramids, and is ideal for sounding the
depth of deposits in caves and rock
shelters.
Portable instrumentation has recently
become commercially available, but at a
cost of about $3600! Quite prohibitive
for the amateur treasure seeker! Such a
signal enhancement seismograph is
battery operated, weighs only 17 lbs and
is exceedingly accurate and easy to use.
The seismic disturbance is made by
simply hitting the ground with a 10 lb
hammer.
Resistivity
Another characteristic of differing
strata is electrical resistivity in fact
the range of electrical resistivities is
enormous. It extends from 10-1 ohm/
metre to 1019 ohms/metre. It follows
that if we can measure vertical and horizontal resistivity profiles of the ground,
we must be able to detect changes in
composition, and hence deduce the
existence of buried objects. There are
many ways of doing this, some involving ac measurements and others using
dc. Generally, the resistivity is far from
uniform and so the measurement used is
one of apparent resistivity in effect
it is a mean value depending on the distribution of rocks and their individual
resistivities.
One of the most common electrode
arrangements for measuring apparent
resistivity is that known as the Wenner
Array (illustrated in Figure 4). Using a
Wenner Array (with electrode separation a) on the surface of a semiinfinite solid with uniform resistivity p,
then p = 2a V/I = 2aR (where R is the
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the Earths field. The precession frequency was linearly related to the
intensity of the magnetic field. The
proton precession magnetometer is
available now at a cost of about $500.
More recently an instrument has been
developed which measures the electronnuclear spin of atoms in an alkali metal
vapour. This spin frequency is also linearly related to the magnetic field, but
yields an accuracy of 1 part in 1 million
(ETI Jan, 1973). At present these instruments are expensive in excess of $1000
but as refining developments
progress, this cost may be expected to
decrease substantially.
The magnetic field on the Earths surface is almost entirely (95%) due to
stable sources within the core. The
remaining 5% originates from variable
causes, and may be divided into temporal (time) or special (position)
variations. The temporal changes result
Geotech
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