Course Details

AF Academyby AF Academy

Seismic Refraction & Seismic Refraction Tomography: Advanced

Seismic Refraction & Seismic Refraction Tomography: Advanced

Seismic technique is one of the most developed geophysical techniques, providing vital information on subsurface, crucial for most of the engineering projects. Seismic Refraction surveys are routinely carried out for assessment of subsurface conditions prior to engineering projects.


With recent advances in seismic refraction technology and software, practitioners are faced with numerous choices in selecting acquisition and inversion parameters, some of which can affect results substantially. The course includes a review of the seismic method followed by instrumentation, survey techniques, data processing and interpretation methods. This course covers the seismic refraction and seismic refraction tomography method for practicing field surveyors that are currently involved in seismic surveys as well as in academic research.


This course covers the basics of seismic surface waves, data acquisition, and data processing. The course will cover the fundamentals in such a way that participants can, upon its completion, engage in common applications such as bedrock depth determination, identification of faults/ fractures/ shear zones, thickness of overburden, estimation of rock quality/ degree of weathering, and other such applications. It will demonstrate how to process the data, and each participant will be guided step-by-step in processing actual field data sets.


All geotechnical engineers, geologists, geophysicists and researchers dealing with strength of subsurface can benefit from attending this course and learning about this state-of-the-art seismic technique.


The Primary Objectives of the course are:

  1. to grasp basic concepts of seismic waves,
  2. to understand the overall field procedure for optimal data acquisition,
  3. to provide first-hand experience in processing field data sets to generate two-dimensional (2-D) P- wave velocity (V) cross sections.
  4. to recognize typical applications of SRT, and
  5. to be fully flexible in data acquisition and processing so that one can handle challenging situations more successfully.

Do you face any of the following challenges?

  1. Inability to choose right data acquisition parameters
  2. Failing to obtain data in difficult field conditions
  3. Unable to get best results out of acquired data
  4. Not able to understand processing steps
  5. Not able to process the data in 2D
  6. Not able to interpret the SRT section & translate it to geology


This course addresses all the above and more (Topics)….


Data Acquisition

  1. How to determine the critical parameters of spread length, geophone spacing, shot point location etc.
  2. How to choose the optimum receiver (geophones)
  3. How to choose the optimum source
  4. Sledge hammer (10-lb, 20-lb, etc.), weight-drop or explosive?
  5. Data acquisition in difficult field conditions


Seismic Refraction Data Processing

  1. Understanding fundamentals of data processing
  2. Delay time method
  3. Intercept time method
  4. Plus-Minus Method
  5. Generalised Reciprocal Method
  6. Live data processing on EasyRefract Software


Seismic Refraction Tomography Processing

  1. Different Approaches of SRT
  2. Advantages of using tomography approach
  3. Live data processing on SeisOpt 2D


Above is a tentative list of topics to be covered. More topics will be added as per requirement of attending participants.