Seismic Applications For Mining Using Passive Sources

The seismic reflection exploration method has shown its superiority for imaging subsurface structures with high spatial resolution. A typical exploration application is with receivers at the surface that record propagating waves caused by active sources also at the surface. 

This method is being applied, and lately becoming more and more popular, for mining exploration at existing or new fields. But utilization of active sources is not always possible or even desirable due to their potential damaging footprint on the surrounding environment. 

Thus, an alternative that uses passive recordings, for example ambient seismic noise, and still produces active-source-like reflection recordings is very desirable. Such a method is seismic interferometry. With this method, new seismic responses are retrieved at the positions of receivers from virtual sources also at the positions of the receivers. 

I will show several applications of the method for retrieval of reflection arrivals from ambient noise recorded at mining fields, and discuss their advantages and disadvantages.