Geophysical Field Work and Processing: Methods

Abstract

Mapping aquifers for water supply, identifying archaeological remains to protect them, and investigating landslides for geohazard assessments highlight the critical role of near-surface geophysics. The course ‘Geophysical Field Work and Processing’, split into ‘Methods’, ‘Preparation’, and ‘Field Work’, provides an introduction to near-surface geophysical field work.

Objective

The overall learning objective of the course 'Geophysical Fieldwork and Processing' is that by the end of the course, the students will be able to plan and conduct a near-surface geophysical field campaign to address real-world problems, process their self-acquired data, interpret and document their results, and critically evaluate their findings to draw conclusions and provide sound recommendations. The 'Methods' part is a step towards this objective. By the end of the 'Methods' part, the students will be able (1) to summarize the working principles of a selection of essential geophysical methods, (2) to identify the underlying physics of 'real-world' problems to translate them into a 'tractable' geophysical research questions,and (3) to critically evaluate the implications and to question the assumptions of solution strategies.

Content

The ‘Methods’ part of the course ‘Geophysical Field Work and Processing’ is centred around learning and refreshing the basic principles of the most common geophysical field techniques such that the students have the necessary background to plan a geophysical field campaign (topic of the ‘Preparation’ part), to conduct these campaigns in the subsequent ‘Field Work’ course part as well as to analyze and interpret their self-acquired geophysical data (topic of ‘Field Work’ part). The ‘Methods’ part is a combination of self-study and classroom sessions. The students will study at their own pace online lectures and learning material provided on ETH's Moodle platform. Regular classroom sessions will be dedicated to applying and deepening the acquired knowledge in hands-on exercises. The online lectures and quizzes covering short reviews of the theory, techniques, acquisition and processing complemented by reading material focus on the most common geophysical techniques: - Ground Penetrating Radar; - Electrical Resistivity Tomography; - Magnetic Surveying; - Electromagnetic Induction Surveying; - Seismic Refraction Tomography.

Resources