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Dude, Where’s My Gun? A near-surface geophysics case-study

Article  in  ASEG Extended Abstracts · December 2019

DOI: 10.1080/22020586.2019.12072912

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Dude, Where’s My Gun? A near-surface geophysics case-study
Tim Dean* Alex Costall Nichole Sik
Curtin University – Exp. Geophysics Curtin University – Exp. Geophysics Curtin University – Exp. Geophysics
Bentley, West Australia Bentley, West Australia Bentley, West Australia
tim.dean@curtin.edu.au alex.costall@curtin.edu.au nichole.sik@curtin.edu.au

John Blylevens Andrew Pethick Dominic Howman

Roy. Aus. Artillery Historical Soc. of WA Curtin University – Exp. Geophysics Curtin University – Exp. Geophysics
Mosman Park, West Australia Bentley, West Australia Bentley, West Australia
john.blylevens@iinet.net.au andrew.pethick@curtin.edu.au d.j.howman@curtin.edu.au

(a)
SUMMARY
Buckland Hill, near Fremantle in Western Australia, was
the site of a costal defence battery from 1942 until 1963.
After the army left the site in the mid-1980s, it was
developed for housing, but the battery area was retained as
a park and later developed into a military museum. The
battery included three 5.25-inch guns of which only one is
currently visible, the other two having been either
demolished or buried. To identify the location of the two
remaining positions we acquired ground penetrating radar,
3D electrical resistivity imaging, 2D seismic, frequency (b) (c)
domain electromagnetic and magnetic data. All the
methods were successful to some extent, but Frequency
domain EM was the most useful. From our results we are
confident that the second gun position has survived largely
intact and discussions are now underway to excavate it.
Despite difficulty in accessing the suspected position of
the third emplacement, there is no indication that it still
exists (it was probably demolished when the area was
developed for housing).
Key words: near-surface, artillery Figure 1. Leighton Battery’s 5.25-inch guns could be used
for both coastal defence (a) and anti-aircraft (b); (c) Photo
of the guns being cut up for scrap in 1963 (the ‘Daily News’).
INTRODUCTION
After the army’s departure the land surrounding the Battery was
Coastal artillery batteries were a key part of Australia’s
developed for housing whilst the battery area itself was retained
defences during the Second World War; protecting against
as a park. As seen in Figure 4d by 1995 the gun pits (Figure 3)
German commerce raiders and a possible Japanese invasion.
had been possibly demolished and filled with dirt and the area
One such battery (the Leighton Battery) was located at
vegetated.
Buckland Hill near the port of Fremantle in Western Australia.
Initially the battery consisted of two 6-inch guns but these were
later replaced by a battery of three 5.25-inch guns (Figure 1).
Each gun position consisted of a pit upon which the gun was
mounted (Figure 3) and three underground rooms containing
stores and machinery. In 1963, coastal artillery was declared
obsolete and the guns were scrapped (Figure 1c) although the
site (Figure 2) continued to be used by the army until the mid-
1980s.

Figure 2. Aerial photo of Leighton Battery taken from the

east in March 1963 (‘The West Australian’).

AEGC 2019: From Data to Discovery – Perth, Australia 1

Dude, where’s my gun? Dean et al.

dipole electrode sequences including cross-diagonal

Figure 3. Photo taken from the north showing the currently
exposed gun position in the foreground and the suspected
position of the 2nd position (note the lack of any obvious
surface expression) outlined by the red box.
measurements (yellow box in Figure 5).
3. 2D seismic – A single line of 48 10-Hz geophones
placed with 1 m spacing was acquired using a
sledgehammer over the suspected location of the
central position (blue line in Figure 5).
4. Frequency domain electromagnetics – An EM31
surface conductivity survey, with a 9.8 kHz
transmission frequency and Tx-Rx coil separation of
3.66 m, was conducted with measurements every 1 m
where possible. Both in-phase and quadrature
components were collected, but only the quadrature
(i.e., the apparent conductivity) measurements are
shown.
5. Magnetic – Data was acquired using a GEM GSM-19
Overhauser Magnetometer, again, with readings
every 1 m where possible.

In 1990, a lease was granted to the Royal Australian Artillery

Historical Society of Western Australia to develop the area as a
military museum, which opened in 1997. As seen in Figure 4e
and Figure 3, part of the restoration work involved excavating
the northern most gun position. As part of the continued
development of the site, attention has turned to locating and
possibly excavating the two remaining gun positions.
Unfortunately, little evidence of their position, other than the
aerial photographs, remains and their continued existence is
also uncertain. To this end Exploration Geophysics at Curtin
University offered to conduct a survey employing a variety of
near surface techniques to identify the location of the gun
positions. We begin this paper by describing the acquisition
parameters for each of the employed geophysical methods. This
is proceeded by an analysis of the processed data over key
locations. Figure 5. Drone photograph of the study area. The seismic
line is shown in blue, a GPR line in red and the ERI grid in
yellow.
RESULTS

The GPR results indicate the location of a potential gun site as

determined from reflection profile variation. A chaotic
reflection profile (‘A’ on
Figure 6) is common throughout the undisturbed Limestone.
The abrupt change to an area where significantly less reflections
are present suggests the ground may have been previously
excavated and backfilled. A strong and previously unobserved
reflector (‘B’ on
Figure 6) exists at the base of the less-reflective zone. The
envelope attribute further highlights this less-reflective zone
and strongly reflective base feature. Given the abrupt changes
from background signature, we suspect this to be non-
geological, and suggest that it may be the base of the gun
position.
Figure 4. A montage of aerial photos showing the site
between 1953, when the battery was still operational up to
2018. The blue boxes indicate the approximate position of
the guns while the red box indicates the position of the
battery command post.

METHOD

To identify the positions, we employed the following

techniques:
1. Ground penetrating radar (GPR) using a 670 MHz
antenna.
2. 3D electrical resistivity imaging (ERI) – We
deployed a 12 x 6 m grid of electrodes with 2 m
spacing with data collected using a series of dipole-

AEGC 2019: From Data to Discovery – Perth, Australia 2

Dude, where’s my gun? Dean et al.

Figure 6. Left - Radargram (top) and attribute analysis can be clearly seen to have a strong conductivity and magnetic
(bottom) showing the change in reflectivity profile (A) signature with the conductivity result being particularly
across the proposed gun site. successful at delineating the limit of the emplacement. The
suspected position of the 3rd emplacement likely falls on an
Figure 7 shows the formation resistivity outcome from adjacent vacant block (Figure 4f) for which permission to
inversion of 3D inline and cross-diagonal dipole-dipole survey could not be obtained. There was, however, no evidence
imaging over the potential gun site. Data is inverted using of the edge of the emplacement on the data.
Res3DInv v3.10.38. A cut-away highlights the centrally located
conductive anomaly. The site presents a highly conductive
anomaly compared to the surrounding lithology. Two possible
explanations are that (i) the concrete reinforcing structure
remains intact, or (ii) the pit was backfilled with rubble and
metallic waste during site remediation. Some evidence of
rubble and concrete reinforcing (e.g. rebar) protrudes at the
surface; however further corroboration with ground excavation
studies is required to determine the source of the highly
conductive anomaly.

Distance (m)
Depth (m)

Figure 9. Surface conductivity results. Where the

N measurement density allows, the data has been gridded.

Figure 7. Inversion outcomes for 3D electrical resistivity

imaging showing a conductive region in the middle of the
ERI grid.

Figure 8 shows two seismic records acquired at either ends of

the seismic line. The suspected location of the gun position is
indicated by the red boxes. As the concrete mount has a much
faster velocity than the surrounding soil the first arrival times
are considerably shorter resulting in the near offsets in Figure
8b being ‘pulled up’ when compared to those in Figure 8a
where the source is located at the other end of the line.

Figure 10. Magnetic field strength (right) results. Where the

measurement density allows, the data has been gridded.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

We trialled a number of near-surface geophysical methods to

Figure 8. Seismic records acquired with the source at either
end of the seismic line (the data in (b) has been reversed to
make comparisons easier). The red boxed indicate
coincident receivers on the line.
Figures 9 and 10 show the surface conductivity and magnetic
field strength results respectively. The 2nd buried gun position
identify the location/existence of two buried gun mount
positions. All the methods were successful to some extent, but
frequency domain EM near-surface conductivity mapping
yielded the most definitive results and was also one of the
easiest to acquire. The frequency domain EM method recovers
apparent conductivity and cannot resolve electrical
conductivity variations with depth due to the limitation of a
using a dual-coil transmitter-receiver configuration, single-
transmission frequency waveform. The 3D ERI was useful in
this respect as it gave some indication of the depth of the

AEGC 2019: From Data to Discovery – Perth, Australia 3

 Dude, where’s my gun? Dean et al.

emplacement but the resolution of the inversion, despite the
dense survey, does not reflect its complexity. GPR mapped an
area of disturbed earth but the scattering from the limestone
host-rock makes definitive identification difficult. The
magnetic data shows a response from the position but does not
map its extent. The seismic data shows an increase in velocity
from the underlying concrete but again mapping the extent of
the position based on this response would be extremely time-
consuming.
the suspected position of the third emplacement, there is no
indication that it still exists (it was probably demolished when
the area was developed for housing).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We thank Brett Harris and the third year near surface class who
helped with data acquisition.

Given the strength of the response we are confident that the

second gun position has survived largely intact and discussions
are now underway to excavate it. Despite difficulty in accessing

AEGC 2019: From Data to Discovery – Perth, Australia 4

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