Multi-geophysical approach for the better understanding and characterization of subsurface structures

Understanding and characterizing subsurface structures is challenging, especially when the objective is to investigate sites for nuclear waste disposal. This paper presents a multi-geophysical approach for subsurface experimental investigations in which seismic data are used to improve electrical resistivity tomography quality. Different synthetic models ranging from simple to complex were created to quantitatively demonstrate the improvements enabled by the use of this strategy. Moreover, the scheme was tested at Beishan, a candidate site for the disposal of high-level radioactive waste in northwestern China. The results show that the combination of geophysical data sources improves the interpretation of the subsurface over a single source. The root-mean-square level and runtime were found to rapidly decrease when using the proposed scheme.