Nama : Ester Yohanna RMP

NPM : 1515051030

Tugas : Resume Paper Mata Kuliah Elektromagnetik

Judul Paper : Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) attribute analysis for archaeological
prospection.

According to the title, this paper discuss about how GPR method can analyze potential of
archeological things, that we could use this method to locate the area which indicated as a
potential area of archeological things. This paper tell us about how to process the data and
interprate the data as the result of acquisition process to find the target. Actually, GPR
method itself applied not only in archeological survey. We can use this method for geological
studies, environmental contamination, geotechnical engineering, sedimentology, glaciology,
and biomonitoring . Especially in archaeological studies itself, purpose of this method is to
map the spatial extent of buried cultural heritage. GPR can efficiently and accurately map
archaeological features or changes in the matrix of a site and ultimately identify the size,
shape, depth, and location of buried cultural remains and related stratigraphy, which are
always described by 2-D reflection profiles with excellent subsurface resolution.

The survey and acqusition process itself took place at ancient Roman town of Aquileia,
which is one important archaeological site located in north-eastern Italy. Slightly reviewing
about the location, Aquileia was first razed to the ground in the V century and was
abandoned for around 250 years before the beginning of the IX century while during this
period the whole area changed into a marsh due to an uncontrolled water supply from
previously canalized streams. A layer of sediments of variable grain size (from sands to
pelites) and average thickness not less than some meters deposited during this period.

Nowadays still mainly covered by alluvial sediments with a shallow water table. This site is
characterized by several buried foundations and remains of walls, mixed with debris at depths
ranging between about 0.5 and 4.0 m. The Aquileia Archaeological Park is an ideal site to
test the applicability of integrated geophysical methods, due to the variety of targets, the
complex subsurface conditions and to the large amount of documentary evidences and
archaeological excavations, which can be used in the calibration of the results. The primary
objective of the study was to provide new information about the buried cultural heritage and
the stratigraphic sequence, with specific reference to the areas of the river harbor of the
imperial town, which complements the results of archaeological excavations and the
available documents.

At this research area, the researchers use GPR system equipped with 250 MHz centra
lfrequency antennas and rectangular grid was established with a profile spacing of 0.5 m and
a trace distance from 0.05 m which each trace was 16 times vertically stacked in the field in
order to reduce incoherent noises; the sampling rate was set to 0.398 ns, considerably smaller
than the Nyquist limit in order to avoid any possible aliasing of the data. Before start the
acquisition process, according to this paper, the researcher did radar-wave velocity
measurements to check the wave velocity that emmited from the tools. According to the
results of the velocity analysis based on both CMP and diffraction hyperbolas, EM wave
velocity shows a general decreasing trend with values from about 10 cm/ns close to the
surface to about 5.5 cm/ns at a time of 60 ns. This behavior is basically due to the effect of
the local shallowest aquifer.

The basic GPR processing sequence included: data editing, geometry header definition, DC
removal, amplitude analysis, spectral analysis,band-pass filtering, background removal, true
amplitude recovery, velocity analysis on the diffraction hyperbolas, and f–k migration. In this
area Topographic (static) correction was not applied because the surface topography was
almost flat.

In this study, we calculated and critically evaluated the following attributes:

 Instantaneous amplitude
Instantaneous attributes are the products of complex signal theory, whose original
application was the mathematical treatment of amplitude-modulated and frequency-
modulated transmission Instantaneous amplitude variations of the selected data
volume at the sample location mainly represent impedance contrasts, sequence
boundaries, major changes in depositional environment, spatial correlations to
porosity and, in general, variations in physical properties of thematerials.
 Cosine of instantaneous phase
The cosine of instantaneous phase at the sample location emphasizes spatial
continuity/discontinuity of reflections, not considering the amplitude of the events.
Such attribute is of central importance since it describes the location of events in the
trace and leads to the computation of other instantaneous quantities. The cosine of
instantaneousphase makes weak events clearer and is also effective to highlight lateral
discontinuities of the reflectors.
 Edge detection techniques
Edge detection techniques are applied for seismic data analysis and more generally for
image processing. The basic principle is that a discontinuity can be interpreted as a
sharp lateral phase variation and therefore can be detected as an “edge”. Applying this
process for all the output locations within a fixed time window we obtain filtered data
with attenuated random noise. We applied noise removal and edge detection to
identify lateral signal variations and discontinuities.
 Dominant frequency
The frequency character of a composite reflection will change gradually as the
sequence of layers gradually changes in thickness or composition of materials. Local
variations of water in the soil tend to produce a rapid frequency change. Frequency
variations can be evaluated and analyzed along one trace, between traces along the
same profile or within a 3-D volume.
 Similarity
  Energy
The Energy is a measure of reflectivity in the specified time-gate. The higher is the
amplitude, the higher is the energy. In addition, the energy can only be positive (like
the reflection strength) and can be useful to emphasize low or irregular amplitude
reflections.

In 2-D profile analysis and interpretation, we can conclude that buried potential
archaeological targets are within the depth range between 10 ns and 70 ns, with several
superimposed and interconnected structures, especially in the shallow part. For instance
there’s a strong reflection, located at about 3 m in x direction that seems to have no lateral
continuity and therefore is probably related to a stone or a short wall, while the more laterally
coherent anomalies, located at 23 m, 33 m, and 51 m are consistent with large ruins of
buildings (normally foundations of brickworks), but they are buried within a chaotic mixtures
of sediments and debris.

In this paper, objects of dimensions and shape compatible with soil layers, transitional layers
separating two zones characterized by discontinuous/ continuous targets, were interpreted
using the cosine of instantaneous phase attribute. Furthermore, the similarity was calculated
to better highlight the coherent anomalies on the cosine of instantaneous phase attribute
section. The extension to 3-D attribute analysis allows enhanced identification of size, shape,
and location of buried cultural remains at different depths. The energy attribute shows several
potential archaeological features with different shapes, dimensions and positions in depth.
Additionally, several geometrically coherent anomalies at about 52 ns, with complex
subsurface conditions, were characterized using the instantaneous amplitude.