Analysis of Multicomponent Data to Study Esker Structures, Turku-Finland

Sammanfattning: Eskers are long winding ridges that originate from gravel that has travelled in meltwater streams in glaciers. At the study site, Virttaankangas plane in southwest Finland, there are esker structures covered by sediments. One reason why it is important to study eskers is because they are used for purifying drinking water. The data used in the study were collected during a seismic survey in July 2014. During the survey a controlled source created seismic waves that travelled down through the earth and then reflected back up again. By detecting the travel time of the waves and estimating the velocity of the geologic layers, the depth to the reflecting structures could be calculated. There are two types of waves that travel through the body of the earth, pressure waves (P-waves) and shear waves (S-waves). In a previous study (Maries et al., 2017) P-wave data from the same survey have been analyzed, so this work focuses on S-wave data but also compares the result from the two. Some structures related to eskers were identifiable, such as fractures in the bedrock from the pressure of the main esker core. By comparing S- and P-wave results it was possible to see hints of the arched esker cores and esker fan lobes. Overall the result confirmed the model that was achieved of the profile in the previous study. The location of the bedrock both matched with the previous study, and added information about its orientation. An additional goal was to demonstrate the insensitivity of S-waves to water content by showing that if there was a water table reflection in the P-wave data, this reflection was missing in the S-wave data. The results showed water table reflections in the P-wave data, but there were no distinguishable water table reflections with appropriate velocity for S-waves in the S-wave data.