Application of 3D GPR attribute technology in archaeological investigations

Ground penetrating radar (GPR) attribute technology has been applied to many aspects in recent years but there are very few examples in the field of archaeology. Especially how can we extract effective attributes from the two- or three-dimensional radar data so that we can map and describe numerous archaeological targets in a large cultural site? In this paper, we applied GPR attribute technology to investigate the ancient Nanzhao castle-site in Tengchong, Yunnan Province. In order to get better archaeological target (the ancient wall, the ancient kiln site, and the ancient tomb) analysis and description, we collated the GPR data by collected standardization and then put them to the seismic data processing and interpretation workstation. The data was processed, including a variety of GPR attribute extraction, analysis, and optimization and combined with the archaeological drilling data. We choose the RMS Amplitude, Average Peak Amplitude, Instantaneous Phase, and Maximum Peak Time to interpret three archaeological targets. By comparative analysis, we have clarified that we should use different attributes to interpret different archaeological targets and the results of attribute analysis after horizon tracking is much better than the results based on a time slice.