Detection of underground cavities with monofrequency electromagnetic tomography between boreholes in the frequency range 100 MHz to 1 GHz1

In order to detect underground cavities, we have designed a geophysical method based on the interaction of a monochromatic electromagnetic wave in the frequency band 100 MHz to 1 GHz with the ground situated between two boreholes. Three different approaches are involved in the design of this EM tomographic method.

• 1 The application of an ‘exact’ theory is used to calculate artificial data, based on an integral equation method. These data are inverted using a tomographic algorithm whose basic assumptions are rather coarse. The results show that, however, cavities can very well be detected and their position recovered.
• 2 Data are obtained with a physical reduced-scale model in a water tank, in which all parameters are known in advance. The inversion process confirms the validity of the method.
• 3 Underground cavities are actually detected.

The above approaches are described and discussed and results are shown. The equipment involved and its operation is quite simple: the surface devices are commercially available and only the transmitter and receiver antennae must be specially built. The method is shown to be quite efficient and its cost should be reasonably low.