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Multichannel analysis of passive surface waves based on crosscorrelations

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DOI: 10.1190/geo2015-0505.1

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Multichannel analysis of passive surface waves based on

crosscorrelations

Feng Cheng1, Jianghai Xia2, Yinhe Luo3, Zongbo Xu1, Limin Wang1, Chao Shen1,
Ruofei Liu1, Yudi Pan1, Binbin Mi1, and Yue Hu1

ABSTRACT using crosscorrelation to produce common virtual source gathers

Passive seismic methods in highly populated urban areas have
gained much attention from geophysics and civil engineering
communities because traditional seismic surveys, especially in
complex urbanized environments, might be improperly applied.
In passive seismic methods, directional noise sources will inevi-
tably bring azimuthal effects and spatial aliasing to dispersion
measurements due to the fact that true randomness of ambient
noise cannot be achieved in reality. To solve these problems,
multichannel analysis of passive surface (MAPS) waves based on
long noise sequence crosscorrelations is proposed. We have in-
troduced a hybrid method of seismic interferometry and the road-
side passive multichannel analysis of surface waves (MASW)
from 1 h multichannel noise records. Common virtual source
gathers are then used to do dispersion analysis with an active
scheme based on phase-shift measurement. Synthetic tests
demonstrated the advantages of this method with azimuthal ad-
justment and dispersion imaging for directional noise source dis-
tribution. Two field applications were conducted, and results from
the roadside passive MASW, MAPS, and spatial autocorrelation
method were compared. Our study indicated the superiority of
MAPS over the roadside passive MASW on the validity of azi-
muth detection, feasibility of combining the active MASW and
MAPS, and accuracy in determining dispersion energy trends,
especially at a relative low-frequency range (1 Hz ≤ f ≤ 10 Hz)
in urban areas.

INTRODUCTION
Due to the increasing importance of reliable seismic hazard as-
sessment in large urban areas, large efforts have been devoted to the
development of tools for site effect estimation that allow large areas
to be covered at limited cost (Parolai, 2012). Passive surface wave
analysis is a complement to active survey methods, which often
could not achieve sufficient depth of investigation. Relying on natu-
ral noise observations, passive surface wave methods allow for the
layout of long term in situ experiments dedicated to the mechanical
characterization of structures varying with time (Feuvre et al., 2015).
Therefore, they draw more and more attention of engineering seis-
mologists. Traffic noise is deemed to be a fascinating choice to
retrieve surface waves, especially in urban areas (Asten, 1976; Louie,
2001; Okada, 2003; Park et al., 2004; Nakata et al., 2011; Behm et al.,
2014).
Nonideal source distributions, such as limited azimuthal distribu-
tion or near-source effects (Roberts and Asten, 2008) can signifi-
cantly affect the reliability of interpretation of observations due to
violation of the stationarity assumptions required by passive survey
methods (Claprood and Asten, 2010). True randomness cannot be
achieved in reality. Dispersion measurements will be potentially im-
proved, provided that the directionality of the seismic noise is prop-
erly accounted for (Asten, 2006; Gouédard et al., 2008; Halliday
et al., 2008). In the classic spatial autocorrelation (SPAC) method
(Aki, 1957), a mathematical transformation based on a symmetric

Manuscript received by the Editor 22 September 2015; revised manuscript received 7 March 2016; published online 27 July 2016.
1
The China University of Geosciences, Subsurface Imaging and Sensing Laboratory, Institute of Geophysics and Geomatics, Wuhan, China. E-mail:
mars_cfeng@126.com; zongboxu@hotmail.com; liminwang_1983@126.com; geosc@126.com; irf9110@126.com; yudipan@yahoo.com; mibinbin1991@
126.com; huyue0716@foxmail.com.
2
Formerly The China University of Geosciences, Hubei Subsurface Multi-Scale Imaging Key Laboratory, Institute of Geophysics and Geomatics, Wuhan,
China; presently Zhejiang University, School of Earth Sciences, Hangzhou, China. E-mail: jianghai_xia@yahoo.com.
3
The China University of Geosciences, Hubei Subsurface Multi-Scale Imaging Key Laboratory, Institute of Geophysics and Geomatics, Wuhan, Hubei, China.
E-mail: luoyinhe@cug.edu.cn.
© 2016 Society of Exploration Geophysicists. All rights reserved.

EN57
 EN58 Cheng et al.
receiver array (e.g., circular) is used to cancel the azimuthal factor
of noise sources. To minimize azimuthal effects, beam forming has
also been applied to isolate the main azimuthal direction of noise
sources (Asten, 2001; Halliday et al., 2008; Feuvre et al., 2015).
Beam-forming measurements, however, will be ambiguous for lin-
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ear receiver arrays with a short time sequence (e.g., 3 and 5 s), es-
pecially in a complex urban area. In this case, it is difficult to isolate
the azimuth of the predominant noise sources and determine source-
receiver distance simultaneously.
As for active surveys, multichannel analysis of surface waves
(MASW) is an efficient tool to obtain S-wave velocity V S informa-
tion inferred from dispersion curves (McMechan and Yedlin, 1981;
Song et al., 1989; Park et al., 1999; Xia et al., 1999, 2002a, 2002b,
2006a; Gao et al., 2014). A review of using MASW (Xia, 2014)
discussed the fundamentals of estimating near-surface V S profiles
and quality factors using MASW. Dispersion curves are determined
by mathematical transformations, e.g., frequency wavenumber
transformation and linear Radon transform (Capon, 1969; McMe-
chan and Yedlin, 1981; Park et al., 1999; Xia et al., 2007; Luo et al.,
2008; Shen et al., 2015). Existing dispersion measurements of pas-
sive surveys make the assumption of plane-wave propagation by
ignoring the finiteness of the distance between the surveying area
and the origin point of the surface waves. Park et al. (2004) intro-
duce a novel strategy imaging dispersion of passive surface waves
with active scheme based on phase-shifts measurement, called road-
side passive MASW. Scanning processes along potential azimuthal
directions of noise were implemented. This process distinguishes the
roadside passive MASW from the refraction microtremor method
“ReMi” (Louie, 2001), which assumed that surface waves that do
not propagate in the receiver alignment appear at higher phase veloc-
ities, and in which a dispersion curve is extracted by following a trend
of lowest phase velocities on a dispersion energy image of surface
waves. With the refraction microtremor method, however, consider-
ation of the inherent banding effects due to the limited spatial cover-
age of the measurement is not properly accounted for (Park et al.,
2008). Yaede et al. (2015) demonstrate the use of a hybrid active-pas-
sive source method. The processing scheme is based on the usage of
several MASW techniques developed for active and passive surveys
and basically treats the 60 s records as active source data. However,
only two opposite azimuth angles of
180° based on the inline sur-
face wave propagation are used.
Theoretical studies and field examples have shown that crosscor-
relation of diffuse wavefields can provide an estimate of the Green’s
function between receivers (Weaver and Lobkis, 2001, 2004; Cam-
pillo and Paul, 2003; Wapenaar, 2004; Snieder, 2006; Yang et al.,
2007; Lin et al., 2008; Wang et al., 2014). Curtis et al. (2006) pro-
vide an overview of various applications of seismic noise interfer-
ometry. Using long seismic noise sequences, Shapiro and Campillo
(2004) confirm that it is possible to average the azimuthal factor of
noise sources with crosscorrelation. Chavez-Garcia et al. (2005,
2006) also suggest that it is possible to substitute temporal averag-
ing for the azimuthal averaging required by the SPAC method.
Cheng et al. (2015) implement a similar temporal averaging tech-
nique to improve the roadside passive MASW. They split a 4000 s
consecutive noise record into 100 slices of a 40 s time window and
analyze each segment to stack a final enhanced dispersion energy
image with weights determined by signal-to-noise ratio (S/N).
In this paper, we propose multichannel analysis of passive sur-
face (MAPS) waves based on relative long noise sequence (e.g., 1 or
2 h) crosscorrelations for urban surface wave surveys. First, theo-
retical background of the roadside passive MASW and the process-
ing scheme of MAPS will be introduced. Then, we use two
synthetic tests to demonstrate the advantages of MAPS in azimuthal
adjustment and dispersion imaging for directional noise source dis-
tribution. Finally, two field examples with a directional noise source
in an urban area are conducted to confirm the utility of MAPS and
show the feasibility of combining MAPS with the active MASW
method.
METHOD
Two types of surface wave propagation exist depending on wave-
length and source-to-receiver distance: plane and cylindrical prop-
agations. When sources on the surveying road are distant from a
survey line (e.g., at a distance 10 times or more of the alignment
length), predominant arrivals can be an example of the inline plane-
wave type, and dispersion measurement could be implemented by
(Park et al., 2004)

N


X



Eðf; vÞ ¼
expði2πfxj ∕vÞRj ðfÞ

; (1)
j¼1
where Eðf; vÞ is the relative dispersion energy matrix for a particu-
lar frequency f and a scanning phase velocity v. The Rj ðfÞ corre-
sponds to the Fourier transformation of record at the jth trace with
offset xj . Considering the offline plane-wave type, the calculation in
equation 1 will be carried over the scanning range of the phase
velocity (e.g., 50–3000 m∕s with a 5 m∕s increment) and then over
that of the azimuth (e.g., 0°–180° in a 5° increments), i.e.

N


X



Eðf; v; θÞ ¼
expði2πfxj cos θ∕vÞRj ðfÞ

; (2)
j¼1
where θ corresponds to the azimuth. Here, the scanning range of
azimuth θ is only within the two quadrants (0°–180°) due to the
linear nature of the receiver line.
On the other hand, source points on the surveying road can be
close to the array (e.g., at a distance shorter than a few times the
alignment length from either end or even within the receiver line),
which is an example of the cylindrical wave type. When the cylin-
drical waves are concerned, a source location vector s is introduced
into equation 1 as a scanning process:

X


N



Eðf; v; sÞ ¼
expði2πfks − rj k∕vÞRj ðfÞ

; (3)
j¼1
where Eðf; v; sÞ is the source energy distribution matrix for a par-
ticular frequency f and a scanning phase velocity v by assuming a
potential source location s. The rj corresponds to the location vector
of the jth trace. According to Park and Miller (2008), it is more
important to determine azimuth θ accurately than source distance
ds for source location detection. They indicate that the exact dis-
tance from source to receivers, however, is not critical and that
the distance between the center of the road and the receiver line
is usually sufficient to account for the curvature in the arrival pattern
of the cylindrical waves.
 Passive surface waves EN59

To simplify the scanning scheme of noise source detection, an the observed noise. For the plane-wave type, calculation of the
average phase velocity value v~ inferred by averaging over a prior source energy distribution matrix can be carried over the scanning
dispersion curve is substituted to equation 3 to form a source energy range of the azimuth for each frequency by assuming an average
distribution matrix for each frequency f and source location s: ~ i.e.
phase velocity v;

N

N


X

X

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Eðf; sÞ ¼
~ j ðfÞ

:
expði2πfks − rj k∕vÞR (4) Eðf; θÞ ¼

~ j ðfÞ

:
expði2πfxj cos θ∕vÞR (5)
j¼1 j¼1

The prior dispersion curve can be roughly measured in equation 1. The processing scheme can dynamically detect the source char-
The azimuth determinations are not sensitive to the value of the acteristics (i.e., angle and distance) from the continuous scanning of
average phase velocity. In practice, the determined azimuth fluctu- surface waves for a wide range of azimuth and/or source distance.
ates less than 5° in a possible average phase velocity change of 15%. However, it can be very time consuming with common nested loop
On the contrary, they are directly related to the frequency band of programming, especially for the cylindrical wave type.
We propose MAPS based on long noise sequence crosscorrela-
tions (e.g., 1 or 2 h) for urban surface wave surveys. As for the inline
Table 1. Parameters of a two-layer earth model.
plane-wave propagation case, the relative dispersion energy matrix
without azimuthal adjustment can be calculated in equation 1, i.e.
Layer V S (m∕s) V P (m∕s) ρ (g∕cm3 ) h (m)

N −1 N


X X Cþ −
jk ðfÞ þ Cjk ðfÞ




Eðf;vÞ ¼
expði2πfxjk ∕vÞ
1 220 380 2 3
2
; (6)
2 440 760 2 Infinite j¼1 k¼jþ1

where Cþ −
jk ðfÞ and Cjk ðfÞ are the Fourier transformation of the causal
and the acausal parts of the crosscorrelation between traces j and k of
the whitened records, respectively, and xjk corresponds to the dis-
tance between the jth and the kth traces. As for the offline plane-wave
propagation case, azimuthal effects should be carefully taken into
account and the azimuthal energy distribution matrix for each fre-
quency f and azimuth θ could be simply calculated without consid-
ering the noise source distance. For instance, we empirically chose a
40 s time window for each crosscorrelation segment in this method. It
indicates that potential source locations would cover a range of 4 km
at an average propagation velocity of as low as 100 m∕s and plane-
wave propagation would be the dominant type of surface wave propa-
gation for a civil engineering scale. Equation 5 is transformed as

N −1 N


X X Cþ −
jk ðfÞ þ Cjk ðfÞ


Figure 1. Sources and receivers distribution in case A. Noise Eðf;θÞ ¼

~
expðj2πfxjk cos θ∕vÞ
;
sources are randomly located at polar coordinates between j¼1 k¼jþ1
2
R1 ¼ 1 km and R2 ¼ 3 km, as solid dots show. A 24 channel linear
alignment is used with a 1 m interval. (7)

Figure 2. Dispersion measurements obtained using the roadside passive MASW and MAPS. (a) The results of the roadside passive MASW
with 40 s synthetic noise records. (b and c) Show the dispersion energy images using MAPS, with 40 s synthetic noise records and 1 h synthetic
noise records, respectively. The dotted curve denotes the theoretical curve forwarded from the two-layer model. The two dashed lines restrict a
reliable zone between the Nyquist wavenumber (1∕ð2  dxÞ) and minimum wavenumber (1∕ðn  dxÞ).
 EN60 Cheng et al.
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Figure 3. Sources and receivers distribution in case B. Noise sources
are randomly located at polar coordinates between R1 ¼ 1 km, θ1 ¼
120° and R2 ¼ 3 km, θ2 ¼ 150°, as solid dots show. Alignment set-
ting is the same as that in the case A.
Figure 4. (a) One 1 s segment of the synthetic noise records. (b) A
crosscorrelations gather with 40 s synthetic noise records observed
in Figure 3.
Figure 5. (a and b) Dispersion energy images us-
ing the roadside passive MASW (equation 1) and
MAPS (equation 6), respectively. They are both
calculated from the same 40 s synthetic records
without azimuthal adjustment. (c and d) List the im-
ages of azimuthal energy distribution produced us-
ing the roadside passive MASW (equation 5) and
MAPS (equation 8), respectively. The predominant
azimuth of noise sources was isolated in the range
from 110° to 175° for the roadside passive MASW,
whereas from 120° to 150° for MAPS.
where v~ is determined by averaging over the prior dispersion curve
measured using equation 6. There would be primary energy peaks
occurring in the frequency-azimuth f − θ domain if directional noise
sources exist.
To minimize azimuthal effects, 1 or 2 h is needed for better
temporal averaging measurements. With hours of 40 s window cross-
correlations stacking, coherent signals emerge and azimuth of pre-
dominant noise sources will be efficiently constrained. Azimuth
detection will be more accurate in a high-resolution image of azimu-
thal energy distribution. To improve the quality of stacking results,
we follow the seismic noise interferometry processing described by
Cheng et al. (2015). It contains single station data preparation, cross-
correlation between a pair of stations, and S/N weighted stacking.
Finally, stacking crosscorrelations instead of original noise records
are used for MAPS waves. Substituting the detected azimuth θ ob-
tained from equation 7, an accurate relative dispersion energy matrix
in MAPS is then calculated in equation 2; i.e.
Eðf;vÞ
 PN−1 PN
j expði2πfxjk cosθ∕vÞCþ
jk ðfÞj if θ > 90;
¼ Pj¼1 Pk¼jþ1
j j¼1 k¼jþ1 expði2πfxjk cosθ∕vÞC−jk ðfÞj if θ < 90:
N−1 N
(8)
SYNTHETIC TESTS
The MAPS method is tested with synthetic noise records ob-
tained for various noise distributions. Realistic ambient seismic
fields recorded at a given receiver can be considered as the sum
of all wavefields propagating from all sources to the receiver. A
laterally homogeneous medium with vertical-only variations and
dispersive properties is assumed (Prieto et al., 2009; Lawrence et al.,
2013). In the far-field approximation, the response of the medium to
 Passive surface waves
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Figure 6. The dispersion image after azimuthal adjustment with the
detected azimuth, θ ¼ 135°, using MAPS. Peaks of the dispersion
energy trend match well with the theoretical curve within the reli-
able wavenumber zone.
Figure 8. (a) One 300 s segment of observed noise records. (b) The average power spectrum of the noise records. (c) A crosscorrelation gather
obtained from a 1 h noise sequence.
EN61
a single point-force source located at si and of spectrum F becomes
the displacement spectrum u, i.e.
X
N
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ux ðwÞ ¼ Fðsi ; wÞeiðwtsi −krsi x −aðwÞrsi x Þ ∕ rsi x ; (9)
j¼1
where w is the angular frequency, k is the wavenumber, tsi is the
source time (Sanchez-Sesma and Campillo, 2006), aðwÞ is the fre-
quency-dependent attenuation coefficient, and rsi x is the source-
receiver distance.
The medium is a two-layer model, whose properties are detailed
in Table 1 (Feuvre et al., 2015). The corresponding fundamental
Rayleigh mode phase velocity is calculated analytically and a given
quality factor Q ¼ 30 is used to calculate the frequency-dependent
attenuation coefficient. A 30.0 Hz Ricker wavelet is chosen as a
source impulse. We finally add weak Gaussian noise to the synthetic
records to model some instrumental noise.
We first consider the case A, with a circle shape distribution of
noise sources, located randomly at polar coordinates between R1 ¼
Figure 7. (a) An aerial photograph of the survey
along Han River levee, Wuhan, China. The pas-
sive survey line (a solid line) along Han River,
which flows from west to east, and parallels some
roads. (b) Location of the referenced active survey
line, that lies at the east end of the passive survey
line. A spatial sampling interval is 2 m for the pas-
sive survey alignment, and 1 m for the active sur-
vey alignment.
 EN62 Cheng et al.

1 km and R2 ¼ 3 km (Figure 1). Each source emits a single pulse at
random time in each 40 s time window of the 1 h synthetic records.
The 24 receivers are planted out along a line, with 1 m spacing.
Figure 2a and 2b exhibits the dispersion energy images using the
roadside passive MASW (equation 1) and MAPS (equation 6), re-
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cleaner image (Figure 2c). Crosscorrelation after single station data
preprocessing enhances coherent phase shifts.
We now consider the case B of directional noise sources, located
randomly at polar coordinates between R1 ¼ 1 km, θ1 ¼ 120° and
R2 ¼ 3 km, θ2 ¼ 150° (Figure 3). Receiver setting is the same as

spectively, based on the same random 40 s records. Figure 2c shows
the results of MAPS with 1 h noise records with temporal averag-
ing. Peaks of the dispersion energy image based on MAPS match
better with the theoretical curve (Figure 2b and 2c). The results of
the roadside passive MASW (Figure 2a), however, show a few
deviations from the theoretical curve due to azimuthal effects. In
contrast, using long noise sequence crosscorrelations stacking effi-
ciently averages azimuthal effects and produces a more accurate and
the former one. Each source emits a single pulse at random time of
the 40 s synthetic records. The synthetic noise records and the
asymmetric crosscorrelations gather show obvious directional in-
coming signals (Figure 4a and 4b). Both dispersion energy images
(Figure 5a and 5b) obtained using the roadside passive MASW
(equation 1) and MAPS (equation 6) display deviations from the
theoretical curve due to azimuthal effects. The 40 s synthetic re-
cords are used for both dispersion measurements. To improve the

Figure 9. (a and b) The images of azimuthal energy

distribution using the roadside passive MASW and
MAPS, respectively. A double-head arrow in panel
(b) indicates a detectable azimuthal range of surface
wave energy. The roadside passive MASW pro-
duced a divergent energy distribution image in the
frequency range 2.0–7.0 Hz and azimuth range
0°–70°, whereas MAPS provided a strong and con-
vergent energy distribution image in the frequency
range 2.0–3.0 Hz and azimuth range 30°–50°. (c
and d) List the corresponding dispersion measure-
ments, respectively. The white dots denote the cor-
responding results using the SPAC method.

Figure 11. The combined dispersion energy image with the normal-
Figure 10. The dispersion energy image of the active measure- ized results of MAPS and that of the active MASW. The M0 and M1
ments. denote the fundamental mode and the first higher mode, respectively.
 Passive surface waves EN63

quality and accuracy of the dispersion measurements by passive sur-
face wave surveys, the predominant azimuth of noise sources should
be identified (Halliday et al., 2008; Bitri et al., 2011). Figure 5c and
5d displays images of azimuthal energy distribution using the road-
side passive MASW (equation 5) and MAPS (equation 7), respec-
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sources, θ ¼ 38°. It indicates that the received energy mainly comes
from the flowing Han River, which applies continuous pressure on
the levee (Figure 7a). Without reliable azimuth detection results,
azimuthal adjustment is unavailable. The noisy dispersion measure-
ments using the roadside passive MASW (Figure 9c) show a poor

tively. The results indicate that MAPS performs better in the
azimuth detection with the higher resolution image of azimuthal en-
ergy distribution. Substituting the detected azimuth, θ ¼ 135°, in
equation 8, the adjusted dispersion energy image matches the theo-
retical curve better (Figure 6). Using only a 40 s noise sequence in
this case, dispersion energy images appear lower resolution than
those with 1 h noise records in case A, especially at high frequency.
These also suggest that long noise sequence temporal averaging is
valid to improve dispersion measurements.
APPLICATIONS TO FIELD DATA
We demonstrate the superiority of MAPS over the roadside passive
MASW on handling directional noise source effects using two field
applications.
match with the results of the SPAC method. Substituting the isolated
azimuth (θ ¼ 38°) to equation 8, however, dispersion measurements
using MAPS (Figure 9d) match well with those using the SPAC
method. Compared with roadside passive MASW, MAPS shows
superior results in azimuth detection and dispersion imaging.
The active measurement was performed with a 6.3 kg hammer and
4.5 Hz geophones. The dispersion energy trend (Figure 10) emerges
between 17.0 and 65.0 Hz, but disappears at the lower frequencies
(<17.0 Hz). We merged passive and active measurements and ob-
tained a combined dispersion energy image (Figure 11) with a
broader frequency range from lower frequencies (approximately
2.0 Hz) to higher frequencies (>60.0 Hz). The M0 and M1 denote
the fundamental mode and the first higher mode, respectively.

Han River levee experiment

The experiment was carried out in the city of
Wuhan, China (Figure 7a). A linear array of 52,
vertical component, RefTek digitizers was de-
ployed along a levee to record continuous traffic
noise from local time 8:00 to 18:00 on 10 March
2014. All digitizers were equipped with 4.5 Hz
sensors, and the minimum interstation distance
was 2 m. The sampling rate was 2 ms to provide
sufficient resolution in the time domain. The pas-
sive survey line (the solid line in Figure 7a) par-
allels the river and some roads, and a bridge is
perpendicular to the survey line. The river flows
through the city from west to east. Figure 7b Figure 12. (a) An aerial photograph of the survey in a wasteland beside a main road,
shows the neighboring site for an active MASW Nantong, China. The survey line (a solid line) is perpendicular to the main road. The
survey line, which lies at the east end of the pas- active survey site is just at the west side of the passive survey line, as the black rectangle
sive survey line. Figure 8a displays an example indicates. (b) Location of the active survey lines. Part of the active survey array was
designed to overlap with the passive survey line, as the dashed line shows. Sampling
of noise records. Frequency analysis reveals that interval is 10 m for the passive survey alignment and 1 m for the active survey alignment.
the most energetic part of urban noise, sourced
from roads and Han River, exists in the frequency
range from 2.0 to 3.0 Hz (Figure 8b). As described
above, we perform seismic noise interferometry
processing (Cheng et al., 2015) on a 1 h noise se-
quence. The weak symmetry of the crosscorrela-
tions (Figure 8c) indicates directional energy from
the west side.
Azimuth detection results using the roadside
passive MASW based on equation 5 (Figure 9a)
and MAPS based on equation 7 (Figure 9b) dem-
onstrate the improved performance of MAPS
with a strong and convergent energy zone (Fig-
ure 9b) in the frequency range from 2.0 to 3.0 Hz
and an azimuth range from 30° to 50°. The de-
tected frequency range also matches well with
the peak location, at 2.5 Hz, of the frequency
analysis (Figure 8b). According to the azimuthal Figure 13. (a) A crosscorrelations gather obtained from a 1 h noise sequence. (b) The
energy distribution using MAPS (Figure 9b), we image of azimuthal energy distribution using MAPS. It indicates the focused energy
identify the azimuth of the predominant noise zone with the azimuth ranging from 0° to 20°.
 EN64 Cheng et al.
Nantong urban experiment
The experiment site was a wasteland beside a main road in the
city of Nantong, China (a solid line in Figure 12a). Part of an active
survey array was designed to overlap with the passive survey line (a
dashed line in Figure 12b), which was nearly perpendicular to the
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Figure 14. The dispersion energy image after azimuthal adjustment
using MAPS.
Figure 15. The dispersion energy image of the active measure-
ments.
Figure 16. The combined dispersion energy image with the normal-
ized results of MAPS and that of the active MASW. The M0 denotes
the fundamental mode.
main road. The 12 vertical-component RefTek digitizers were de-
ployed along the line at a 10 m interval to continuously record traf-
fic noise from local time 9:00 to 14:00 on 17 December 2014, with a
sampling rate of 2 ms.
As described in the former example, we apply MAPS to a 1 h noise
sequence. The asymmetrical crosscorrelations gather indicates that
directional noise sources exist (Figure 13a). From the image of azi-
muthal energy distribution using MAPS (Figure 13b), we identify the
azimuth θ ¼ 10°. Traffic noise from the crossroads or the east–west
road contributes to predominant directional noise sources.
Substituting the detected azimuth (θ ¼ 10°) to equation 2, MAPS
produces a clear and continuous dispersion energy trend (Figure 14)
from 3.0 to 16.0 Hz, which allows deeper investigation. Higher fre-
quency dispersion information in the frequency range from 18.0 to
60.0 Hz is provided by the active survey (Figure 15). Given that the
length of the alignment is limited, increasing the depth of investiga-
tion by a few tens of meters requires order-of-magnitude increases in
active-source energy and/or a multisource offset technique (Park and
Shawver, 2009) to extend the low-frequency end of the dispersion
curve by a few Hz (e.g., to include a 3.0–10.0 Hz frequency range).
Finally, we combine results of MAPS (Figure 14b) with those of
the active MASW (Figure 15) to obtain a dispersion energy image
with a broader frequency band from 3.0 to 60.0 Hz (Figure 16). The
fundamental mode M0 is confidently identified, except that there ex-
ists a little ambiguity at the junction site (approximately 17.0 Hz),
where two dispersion energy concentrations are merged.
CONCLUSIONS
Our results provide a guideline for implementing the MAPS
method in the field. The 1 or 2 h noise observation with a parallel
alignment, which is close to a main road or river, will be sufficient
for generating an unbiased dispersion energy image. If the receiver
line is limited to be perpendicular to a road as the Nantong example,
however, it is suggested that the distance between the beginning
point of the array line and the road should be several times or more
of the alignment length. In this case, an angle between an arrival
direction of the plane propagating energy and a survey line will be
small (e.g., θ < 15o ), which would enhance coherent energy and
increase accuracy of azimuth detection from the image of azimuthal
energy distribution.
To handle with the azimuthal effects for directional noise sources,
we proposed long noise sequence crosscorrelations for urban sur-
face wave surveys. Simulation tests and field examples demon-
strated the superiority of MAPS over the roadside passive MASW
in azimuth detection and dispersion imaging. The MAPS provides a
stable and valid supplement for the active MASW to expand inves-
tigation depth.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This study is supported by the National Natural Science Founda-
tion of China under grant no. 41274142, the National Nonprofit In-
stitute Research Grant of Institute for Geophysical and Geochemical
Exploration, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences under grant
no. WHS201306, and the project “Deep Geological Investigation of
the Karamay Back Mountain Area in Western Junggar, Xinjiang,”
China Geological Survey under grant no. 1212011220245. We would
like thank J. Zhang, Changjiang Institute of Survey, Planning, De-
sign, and Research, China for his assistance in data acquisition along
 Passive surface waves
Han River levee, Wuhan. We thank O. Yilmaz for discussion on the
proposed method and the suggestion of the abbreviation of MAPS for
the method. Finally, we wish to thank assistant editor J. Shragge, as-
sociate editor M. Asten, reviewer J. McBride, and the other anony-
mous reviewer for their constructive and detailed comments that
Downloaded 07/29/16 to 136.159.235.223. Redistribution subject to SEG license or copyright; see Terms of Use at http://library.seg.org/
significantly improved the paper.
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