IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATIONS AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL.
14, 2021 6165
Comparison of Surface Phenomena Created by
Underground Chemical Explosions in Dry
Alluvium and Granite Geology From Fully
Polarimetric VideoSAR Data
Roger Derek West , Robert E. Abbott , and David A. Yocky
Abstract—Phase I of the Source Physics Experiment (SPE) se-
ries involved six underground chemical explosions, all of which
were conducted at the same experimental pad. Research from the
sixth explosion of the series (SPE-6) demonstrated that polarimet-
ric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) is a viable technology for
monitoring an underground chemical explosion when the geologic
structure is Cretaceous granitic intrusive. It was shown that a
durable signal is measurable by the H/A/α polarimetric decom-
position parameters. After the SPE-6 experiment, the SPE program
moved to the Phase II location, which is composed of dry alluvium
geology (DAG). The loss of wavefront energy is greater through
dry alluvium than through granite. In this article, we compare
the SPE-6 analysis to the second DAG (DAG-2) experiment. We
hypothesize that despite the geology at the DAG site being more
challenging than at the Phase I location, combined with the DAG-2
experiment having a 3.37 times deeper scaled depth of burial than
the SPE-6, a durable nonprompt signal is still measurable by a
PolSAR sensor. We compare the PolSAR time-series measures from
videoSAR frames, from the SPE-6 and DAG-2 experiments, with
accelerometer data. We show which PolSAR measures are invariant
to the two types of geology and which are geology dependent.
We compare a coherent change detection (CCD) map from the
DAG-2 experiment with the data from a fiber-optic distributed
acoustic sensor to show the connection between the spatial extent of
coherence loss in CCD maps and spallation caused by the explosion.
Finally, we also analyze the spatial extent of the PolSAR measures
from both explosions.
Index Terms—Coherent change detection (CCD), H/A/α
decomposition, polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR),
VideoSAR.
I. INTRODUCTION
NDERGROUND explosions can be readily detected with
U seismic instrumentation; however, there are other phenom-
ena that could also be confused with an underground explosion,
such as an earthquake or subsurface collapse. Being able to
localize detections and determining the nature of detections can
Manuscript received January 25, 2021; revised May 17, 2021; accepted June
2, 2021. Date of publication June 9, 2021; date of current version June 28, 2021.
(Corresponding author: Roger Derek West.)
The authors are with the Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, NM
87123 USA (e-mail: rdwest@sandia.gov; reabbot@sandia.gov; dayocky@
sandia.gov).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JSTARS.2021.3087909
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. For more information, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
be difficult with seismic instruments, alone. In previous work, it
was shown that the wavefront propagation of the Source Physics
Experiment 6 (SPE-6) underground explosion through granite
generates a durable spatial signal that can be detected with a
polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) [1]. An optical
image of the scene, where the SPE-6 experiment was conducted,
is illustrated in Fig. 1(a) and a synthetic aperture radar (SAR)
image is illustrated in Fig. 1(b).
After the SPE-6 chemical explosion, the SPE program moved
to its Phase II site in Yucca Flat, still on the Nevada National
Security Site. Four chemical explosions at the new site, dubbed
the dry alluvium geology (DAG) site, were conducted in 2018
to 2019. The analysis presented here is from recordings of
the second explosion in the series, called DAG-2. The DAG-2
underground explosion occurred on December 19, 2018. The
primary explosive was nitromethane with a TNT equivalent yield
of 50 997 kg, and the depth of the explosion was 299.8 m. This
is in contrast to the SPE-6, where the TNT equivalent yield
was 2245 kg at a depth of 31.4 m. The dominant geologic
structure at the DAG site is a tertiary extensional basin. Borehole
data and gravity studies have revealed much about the geologic
structure such as its depth, which at its deepest point in the
southern part of the basin is over 2 km, and shape, with the
long axis of the basin being oriented north–south. The basin
fill is composed of quaternary alluvium overlying tertiary-aged
tuffs that sit above Paleozoic basement, mostly comprised of
sedimentary units [2]–[4].
Similar to the SPE-6 underground explosion, the DAG site
was also continuously monitored with a PolSAR radar before,
during, and after the explosion. Furthermore, the explosion was
also monitored on the surface with a fiber-optic distributed
acoustic sensor (DAS) and a network of ground motion ac-
celerometers. Both of these diagnostics aid in the interpretation
of the PolSAR results. An optical image of the scene where
the DAG experiments were conducted is shown in Fig. 1(c),
and a SAR image of the scene is illustrated in Fig. 1(d). The
yellow boundary overlay in Fig. 1(c) delimits the region where
the scene was graded. The green circle indicates the location
of the borehole for the DAG experiments. The red line indicates
the location of a portion of the fiber-optic cable from the DAS.
The blue- and cyan-colored dots and corresponding labels in
6166 IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATIONS AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 14, 2021

Fig. 1. (a) Optical image of the scene where the SPE-6 experiment was conducted. (b) SAR image of the SPE-6 scene. (c) Optical image of the scene of the DAG
experiments. (d) SAR image of the DAG scene. All images are oriented north-up. The blue- and cyan-colored dots and corresponding labels in (a) and (c) indicate
the locations of the accelerometers we used in our analysis. The red line in (c) illustrates where a portion of the fiber-optic cable from the DAS was located; the
yellow line delimits the region where the scene was graded.

Fig. 1(a) and (c) give the accelerometer locations that we used
in our analysis.
The scaled depth of burial was empirically devised as a
safety measure for underground explosions so that there was
no ejecta. The scaled depth of burial of an explosion has units of
m/kT1/3 [5]; the scaled depth of burial of the SPE-6 explosion is
239.8 m/kT1/3 [6], in contrast to 808.4 m/kT1/3 for the DAG-2
explosion. Despite the DAG-2 explosion having a much higher
TNT equivalent yield than the SPE-6 experiment, it has a deeper
scaled depth of burial; in addition, the wavefront caused by an
explosion in alluvium does not propagate as efficiently as it does
through granite [7], [8].
In this article, we compare the analysis previously given for
granite in the SPE-6 experiment to the alluvium geology in the
DAG-2 experiment. In each experiment, we collected PolSAR
data before, during, and after the explosions in videoSAR mode.
Collecting data in videoSAR mode provides many observations
of the scene at different azimuth aspect angles, from which a
time series of PolSAR measures can be derived. The time-series
videoSAR data collected before the explosion provide a baseline
to compare the data collected after the explosion. We show that,
despite the challenging geologic differences between experi-
ments, a sufficient PolSAR time-series surface observable signal
is still present, with respect to baseline measures, for detecting
and geolocating an underground explosion with remotely sensed
PolSAR data. Detecting changes in PolSAR measures has been
accomplished for various applications, such as from PolSAR
covariance matrices from specific classes of vegetation [9] and
time-series measure, computed from an inner-product-based
metric on co- and cross-channel dual-polarization SAR data,
WEST et al.: COMPARISON OF SURFACE PHENOMENA CREATED BY UNDERGROUND CHEMICAL EXPLOSIONS 6167

to monitor coastlines of bodies of water [10]. In our application,
we consider a small number of metrics directly computed from
the H/A/α polarimetric decomposition and total power (Span)
measures. Changes of these fully polarimetric values can be
computed for all classes of scattering mechanisms throughout
the scenes and offer relatively straightforward interpretation. We
correlate the change measure results with fiber-optic DAS and
accelerometer data that were acquired at the scene to show the
relationship between the geologic phenomena excited by the
explosion to PolSAR measurable values.
II. BACKGROUND
Phase history data, collected from each channel of a PolSAR
system, are processed into complex-valued imagery in the same
manner as single-polarization SAR phase histories. An impor-
tant difference between single- and multipolarization is that the
resulting complex-valued images must be calibrated to maintain
amplitude and phase balance between the different channels. In
this section, we give some of the relevant PolSAR background
first-order statistics of the scattering phenomena. The spatial
average of the outer-product of the Pauli feature vector gives
rise to the coherency matrix
T = ppH N (4)
which contains second-order statistics of the scattering mecha-
nisms within the scene. In (4), the notation ·N indicates a spatial
average over a neighborhood ofN pixels and the superscript H
denotes a complex conjugate transpose.
While there are many powerful polarimetric decomposition
algorithms that operate on the coherency matrix, we will be
focusing on the information-theoretic H/A/α decomposition in
this article [12]. Due to how it is formed, the coherency matrix
is positive semidefinite; as such, it has real-valued nonnegative
eigenvalues and orthogonal eigenvectors. The eigendecomposi-
tion of the coherency matrix is given as
3

T= λi u i u H
i (5)
i=1

that we will be using throughout this article. where we can assume that the eigenvalues are ordered, 0 ≤ λ3 ≤
Given that the processed PolSAR data have undergone image λ2 ≤ λ1 .
formation and calibration, the data at a single pixel location can In the H/A/α decomposition, the eigenvalues convey the
be represented by a 2 × 2 scattering matrix strength of the scattering mechanisms represented by the co-
  herency matrix, and the eigenvectors give an indication of the
SHH SHV
S= (1) nature of the scattering physics.
SV H SV V
The eigenvalues of T can be used to generate pseudoproba-
where the subscript notation HV indicates that polarization V bilities
was transmitted and polarization H was received. λi
PolSAR data contain a rich supply of scattering physics Pi = 3 , 0 ≤ Pi ≤ 1. (6)
i=1 λi
information. Many techniques have been developed to represent
the additional dimension of information in meaningful ways. The entropy, H, is sensitive to how many dominant scattering
The total power received at each pixel location throughout the mechanisms are represented by T and is computed from the Pi
image can be computed and is often called the Span. The Span, terms as
denoted as ζ, is computed as 3

2 2 2 2 H=− Pi log3 Pi , 0 ≤ H ≤ 1. (7)
ζ = |SHH | + |SHV | + |SV H | + |SV V | . (2) i=1
Additionally, during the past few decades, researchers have The anisotropy, A, gives the relative strength of the second and
developed polarimetric decomposition algorithms designed to third eigenvalues of T and is computed as
highlight various scattering physics from scattering mechanisms λ2 − λ 3
within the scene. For monostatic data acquisitions, many de- A= , 0 ≤ A ≤ 1. (8)
λ2 + λ3
compositions begin with forming the so-called Pauli feature
vector [11] Finally, α is a roll-invariant value that gives the weighted average
⎡ ⎤ of the scattering physics of the reflectors represented by T and
S + SV V
1 ⎣ HH is computed from the eigenvectors
p= √ SHH − SV V ⎦ (3)
2 S 3

CX
α= Pi cos−1 (|ui (1)|) , 0◦ ≤ α ≤ 90◦ . (9)
where SCX = SHV + SV H and SHV ≈ SV H . The first ele- i=1
ment of p tends to highlight scattering mechanisms throughout
As will be shown, the H/A/α measures are very sensitive to the
the scene that give an odd number of bounces back to the
state of the reflectors within the scene.
radar, such as surfaces or corner reflectors. The second element
The final measures we will use in our analysis are the co-
highlights objects within the scene that have an even number of
herence between two passes of the scene with similar imaging
bounces back to the radar, such as dihedral reflectors vertically
geometry [13] and the interferometric phase between the two
or horizontally oriented with respect to the polarization frame.
passes. The complex-valued sample correlation function is com-
Finally, the last element is sensitive to scattering mechanisms
puted as
such as dihedrals rotated 45◦ .
The Pauli feature vector can be computed on a pixel-by-pixel ι1 ι∗2 N
η=
(10)
basis, or spatially averaged; however, it more or less represents |ι1 |2 N |ι2 |2 N
6168 IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATIONS AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 14, 2021
where ι1 and ι2 represent the complex-valued image data from
passes 1 and 2, respectively.
The modulus of η gives the coherence
γ = |η| (11)
which is contained within the interval γ ∈ [0 1] and gives rise
to the coherent change detection (CCD) image. The CCD image
indicates regions within the scene where no change has occurred
(γ ≈ 1) or regions where some sort of disturbance has occurred
(or regions of low return such as radar shadow).
The phase of η gives the interferometric phase between two
passes
φ = ∠η (12)
and gives rise to interferometric SAR (InSAR) [14], [15]. The
information in InSAR contains terrain topography of the scene.
If it is assumed that the topography of a scene has been deformed,
relative to a reference topography, then with additional process-
ing, differential InSAR (DInSAR) can be computed to reveal
the deformation that has occurred between the two passes of the
scene [16]. Let the phase models for the reference topography
and current topography be denoted as φ1 and φ2 , respectively:
φ1 = φtopo (13)
φ2 = φtopo + φdef . (14)
The DInSAR map is computed as
Δφ = φ2 − φ1 = φdef . (15)
Thus, changes in elevation change, due to topography deforma-
tion, can be measured by DInSAR processing.
III. DATA COLLECTION
The PolSAR data we used for our analysis were collected
on December 19, 2018 with the Sandia National Laboratories
Facility for Advanced RF and Algorithm Development X-band
(9.6-GHz center frequency) fully polarimetric SAR system. The
desired grazing (elevation) angle was set to 38.0◦ , and the desired
range to the scene center was set to 3470.0 m. The PolSAR data
collection parameters for the SPE-6 are very similar and are
summarized in [1].
In addition to SAR measurements, the DAG experiments were
recorded by a wide array of seismoacoustic sensors. Relevant
to this analysis, these included a fiber-optic DAS and surface
accelerometers. The DAS data were collected with an iDAS
sensor, and simultaneous acoustic amplitude, phase, and fre-
quency measurements were obtained at approximately 1.0-m
intervals along the fiber-optic cable. The Endevco piezoresistive
accelerometers were mounted on shallow concrete piers and
covered with native material to avoid damage from activity at the
site. They were recorded on a digital acquisition system that was
triggered by the firing signal. Similarly, the DAS cable was also
buried in a shallow trench. The Silixa Carina interrogator was
located 2.2 km to the south of DAG ground zero (GZ). The cable
(Silixa Constellation) was engineered to enhance backscatter
and, therefore, optical signal to noise. The accelerometer data
and the DAS data were reduced to acceleration in g and strain
rate in nanometers/second using standard techniques.
A. Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar
The DAG and SPE scenes were continuously monitored in
circular trajectory videoSAR mode. At least one orbit was flown
before the explosion, one orbit contains the explosion, and at
least one additional orbit was flown after the explosion. As a
matter of notation, let Cn denote the nth circular orbit, with
n = 0 representing the orbit containing the explosion, n < 0
representing orbits before the explosion, and n > 0 representing
orbits after the explosion. The DAG-2 collection passes of
interest for our analysis are n ∈ {−2, −1, 0, 1, 2}, and the
SPE-6 passes of interest are n ∈ {−1, 0, 1}. For both data
collects, we used C0 as our reference orbit and C−2,−1,1,2
as our match orbits for the DAG-2 collect and C−1,1 as our
match orbits for the SPE-6 collect. The average time dura-
tion of each orbit of interest around the scene during the
DAG and SPE collects was approximately 234 and 222 s,
respectively.
The continuously collected videoSAR phase histories allow
for somewhat arbitrary apertures to be defined for image forma-
tion. We formed two sets of images from the phase history data
from the DAG collect. One set is fully polarimetric with high
azimuth resolution to give detailed spatial analysis of the scene.
The other set contains images only from the copolarization chan-
nels and has coarse azimuth resolution to support a fine temporal
analysis of the scene during the explosion. Both image sets
have 0.1016-m slant-range resolution, and the slant-range and
cross-range image dimensions are both approximately 200 m.
(The ground-projected range image dimension is approximately
253.8 m.) We formed just a high-azimuth-resolution image set
from the SPE data collect.
For the DAG and SPE collects, the images formed from the
reference orbit bracket a short duration both before and after
the explosion, and the images formed from the match orbits
are formed from the same locations within their respective
orbits. Table I summarizes the number of images formed from
each dataset, the average aperture times of the reference orbits,
the time between aperture centers, and the PolSAR measures
computed.
B. Accelerometers
Accelerometers were deployed from 10 to 100 m of sur-
face GZ. The layout of the accelerometers in both the SPE
and DAG scenes is illustrated by the blue- and cyan-colored
dots in Fig. 1(a) and (c), respectively. We used the verti-
cal component of the measured ground acceleration in our
analysis.
C. Surface Fiber-Optic DAS
The portion of the DAS fiber-optic cable relevant to our
analysis is a strand that ran in a trench 20 m from GZ to a
recording station 2.2 km away. The layout of this stretch of the
DAS fiber-optic cable is illustrated by the red line in Fig. 1(c).
WEST et al.: COMPARISON OF SURFACE PHENOMENA CREATED BY UNDERGROUND CHEMICAL EXPLOSIONS 6169

TABLE I
SUMMARY OF THE PROCESSED POLSAR DATASETS

In the table, ρr and ρa are the range and azimuth resolutions, respectively, TAP is the average aperture duration, and ΔTAP is the average time between
successive images.

Fig. 2. Averaged coherence computed in an approximate 60 m × 60 m region about the scene center in the radar coordinate frame. The coherence plots from
the copolarized channels between the C−1 and C0 images are in blue, and the coherence plots between the C0 and C1 images are in green. The images used to
compute the coherence have fine range resolution, but coarse azimuth resolution. Coarse azimuth resolution gives the fine time resolution in the plots. It can be
seen that the radar can readily observe the effects of the explosion and corresponds closely in time with the accelerometer measurements. Note that the green lines
are from the coherence values computed with C1 and are, therefore, approximately 234 s later than the times given.

The DAS measured ground strain rate at approximately 1.0-m A. Coherence

intervals along the axis of the fiber at a single azimuth, which
gives information on the spatial extent of the explosive effects.
The DAS technology is described in [17].
IV. TEMPORAL ANALYSIS
It was shown that the SPE-6 explosion produced both
ephemeral and durable PolSAR signatures when the geology
was primarily composed of granite. The DAG-2 experiment
allows the opportunity to determine if PolSAR signatures are
present when the explosion has a deeper scaled depth of
burial and the geology is composed of dry alluvium, which
suffers a greater explosion wavefront energy loss than gran-
ite. In this section, we focus primarily on the time-series
PolSAR signatures derived from the videoSAR frames and
demonstrate that, despite the more challenging geology, clear
ephemeral and durable signals are measurable through dry
alluvium.
The low-azimuth-resolution dataset, as given in Table I,
provides much finer temporal analysis than the high-azimuth-
resolution data. We computed CCD maps from each coregistered
coarse resolution image pairs from both copolarization channels.
We averaged the coherence in an approximate 60 m × 60 m re-
gion centered on the scene reference point in the radar coordinate
frame. The average coherence values computed between the C0
and C−1 images, as a function of time, are denoted as γV V,−1 (t)
and γHH,−1 (t) for the V V and HH polarization channels,
respectively. Similarly, the average coherence values computed
between the C0 and C1 images are denoted as γV V,1 (t) and
γHH,1 (t).
The averaged coherence, along with the acceleration mea-
sured by the accelerometer located at A2, is illustrated in Fig. 2.
The values of time for the SAR images are based on the center
of aperture; thus, at t = 0, phase history data are used from
before and after t = 0. For reference, the vertical black lines in
the figure roughly delimit the aperture duration centered about
6170 IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATIONS AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 14, 2021

t = 0. The blue lines illustrate that the coherence drops very the PolSAR time series as follows:
quickly after the time of the explosion, which indicates that X
ΔHn,m (t) = HnX (t) − Hm
X
(t) (17)
the radar can immediately measure the effects of the explosion.
The green lines indicate that the coherence recovers after the ΔAX X X
n,m (t) = An (t) − Am (t) (18)
explosion (i.e., the effects of the explosion have settled). Note
X
that the green lines are from the coherence values computed with Δαn,m (t) = αnX (t) − αm
X
(t) (19)
C1 and are, therefore, approximately 234 s later than the times X
Δζn,m (t) = ζnX (t) − ζm
X
(t). (20)
given.
Define the ith components of the following vectors composed
of different measures of ΔH(t):
B. PolSAR Measures
1   
H|δ|
n,m (i) =
Xi
ΔHn,m (tj ) (21)
We utilized the high-azimuth-resolution DAG and SPE N t
j
datasets described in Table I for the PolSAR time-series analysis.

We computed the H, A, α, and ζ measures from the reference
and the match orbits. We spatially averaged each of the measures
in an approximate 10 m × 10 m region in a neighborhood of
each accelerometer location for each videoSAR image set. The
spatial average for each videoSAR image set produces a time
series. (The choice of using 10 m × 10 m regions balances having
a sufficient number of pixels for computing the average, while
reducing the chance of having overlapping regions with other
accelerometer locations.) As a matter of notation, let HnX (t)
denote the entropy time series computed around accelerometer
location X from the Cn orbit image set, similarly for AX n (t),
αnX (t), and ζnX (t).
Our hypothesis is that differences in PolSAR measures tem-
porally persist in alluvium geology as a result of the explosion.
Fig. 3(a) illustrates the time series for the PolSAR measures at
the DAG C8 accelerometer location as a function of time. The
vertical black lines indicate the approximate aperture duration
centered about t = 0. For reference, the measured acceleration
at C8 is also displayed. The most important observation for
these plots is that all of the polarimetric measures, H0C8 (t),
AC8 C8 C8
0 (t), α0 (t), and ζ0 (t), migrate from the “−2” traces to the
“+2” traces as a result of the explosion. The migration confirms
that the explosion is responsible for the differences between the
“−” and “+” time-series plots. The differences indicate that
the signals temporally persist in the alluvium geology, at least
for the duration of the passes considered. The plots at the other
accelerometer locations are similar to that displayed in Fig. 3(a).
In contrast, Fig. 3(b) illustrates the PolSAR time series com-
puted from the PolSAR measures at the SPE A10 accelerometer
location. The differences between the before and after passes
are greater in the SPE data than they are in the DAG data, which
is a result of more energy from the explosion propagating to the
surface through the granite geology and shallower burial depth.
Nevertheless, the PolSAR measures are durable in both cases.
A natural question to ask is: Does the measured acceleration
correlate with any of the PolSAR measures? Let aXi (t) denote
the time series of the accelerometer at location Xi and define
the vector a such that the ith entry is
ai = max aXi (tj ). (16)
tj
Thus, a represents the vector of maximum acceleration values
at each accelerometer location. Define the differences between
1   Xi
2
HRMS
n,m (i) = ΔHn,m (tj ) (22)
N tj
 
HMax  Xi
n,m (i) = max ΔHn,m (tj )
 (23)
tj
where |δ| is the mean absolute difference, RMS is the root
mean square, and Max is the maximum value. Similar vectors
can be computed from the ΔAX (t), ΔαX (t), and Δζ X (t)
measures.
We computed the polarimetric time-series metrics, given in
(21)–(23), at accelerometer locations throughout the SPE and
DAG sites. Table II summarizes the metrics, averaged over the
accelerometer locations, that bracket the explosion, as well as
segments of orbits from before and after the explosion to provide
baseline metrics. There are a couple of things to note about the
entries in the table. First, the C−1 DAG-2 collect had images
that did not coregister well; thus, the metrics are computed on
the valid image pairs. Second, the baseline SPE-6 metrics are
computed from the regions outside of the region delimited by
the black lines in Fig. 3(b). Overall, there is a clear distinction
between the metrics computed from orbits that bracket the
explosion and the baseline metrics. While the SPE dataset has
dramatic increases in the metric values that bracket the explosion
over the baseline, the metrics from the DAG explosion still are
approximately two to three times the baseline values, which is
a nontrivial increase.
Fig. 4 illustrates the maximum acceleration versus the ele-
ments of (a) H, (b) A, (c) α, and (d) ζ. In the figure, it can
be seen that there are two SPE-6 accelerometer values that are
over 30 g. These two accelerometers are located at A13 (55 g)
and A14 (43 g), which are adjacent to GZ. The H, A, and
α PolSAR measures are bounded in the amount that they can
change, regardless of the acceleration. It is likely that there is
a nonlinear relationship between these two data points and the
measured acceleration.
We also computed the correlation coefficients between the
maximum measured acceleration at each accelerometer location
and different measures of the PolSAR time series; however,
we omitted the values associated with the A13 and A14 SPE-6
locations, due to likely nonlinear relationships near GZ. Table III
summarizes the correlation coefficients computed between the
vector a and the various PolSAR measure vectors.
From the table, it can be seen that A correlates with the
maximum acceleration in both the DAG and SPE experiments;
WEST et al.: COMPARISON OF SURFACE PHENOMENA CREATED BY UNDERGROUND CHEMICAL EXPLOSIONS 6171

Fig. 3. Plots of time versus the H, A, α, and ζ values, from the high-azimuth-resolution videoSAR image sets located at (a) C8 (DAG-2) and (b) A10 (SPE-6).
Each point of the plots is averaged in an approximate 10 m × 10 m region surrounding the accelerometers in the corresponding videoSAR image set. The variation
along the plots is due to the aspect-angle-dependent response of the scattering mechanisms around the orbits. The red and blue traces are the measured PolSAR
time series from image sets before and after the explosion, respectively. The green traces are from the image sets containing the explosion. The most important
thing to note is that the green traces migrate from the “before” time-series plots to the “after” traces as a result of the explosion. This indicates that the explosion
is responsible for the changes in the PolSAR measures.

this can be further confirmed visually from Fig. 4(b). A change
in anisotropy implies that both explosions cause a change in
the relative strength between the secondary and tertiary scatter-
ing mechanisms. For example, in regions of relatively packed
soil, this may amount to the explosion causing a fluffing of
the soil, which changes the scattering mechanism from sur-
face to a mix of surface and slight dihedral or volumetric
scattering that is measurable at the X-band wavelength. The
H, α, and ζ measures correlate with the maximum accelera-
tion in the SPE experiment, but have virtually no correlation
in the DAG experiment. This indicates that these measures
are sensitive to the geology. In contrast, A is more affected
by the acceleration and is invariant to these two types of
geology.
6172 IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATIONS AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 14, 2021

TABLE II
COMPUTED TIME-SERIES METRIC VALUES, AVERAGED ACROSS ACCELEROMETER LOCATIONS, FOR THE DAG-2 AND SPE-6 DATASETS

The first row for each data collect contains metrics computed from orbits bracketing the explosion. The second and third rows contain metric values from orbits before and after
the explosion, respectively. The metric values from the orbits that bracket the explosion show a significant increase over the baseline metrics computed from before or after the
explosion.

Fig. 4. Maximum measured acceleration versus (a) HRMS , (b) ARMS , (c) αRMS , and (d) ζ RMS . The SPE acceleration values measuring 43 and 55 g are the
accelerometers at locations A14 and A13, respectively, and are adjacent to GZ.

V. SPATIAL ANALYSIS
The high-azimuth-resolution image sets also support the cre-
ation of CCD maps of the scene. There has been much research
in the field of coherent polarimetric change detection, such as the
development of optimal coherence [11], [18], coherent-change-
type discrimination [19], and for applications such as land use
monitoring [20]. In our work, it suffices to consider just the
copolarized channel CCD maps, computed across the scenes.
Fig. 5 illustrates ground-plane-projected north-up-oriented CCD
maps indicating the coherence loss as a result of the explosions
from (a) the DAG-2 explosion and (b) the SPE-6 explosion. It is
clear that the explosion is drastically different between the two
WEST et al.: COMPARISON OF SURFACE PHENOMENA CREATED BY UNDERGROUND CHEMICAL EXPLOSIONS 6173

Fig. 5. CCD maps computed from images before and after the explosion from the (a) DAG-2 and (b) SPE-6 images sets. The spatial extent of the coherence loss
affected by the explosions can be gleaned from the CCD images. The red line in (a) indicates the position of the north/south segment of the DAS fiber-optic cable
and the illustration in (c) shows the DAS measurements during the DAG-2 explosion; the time duration of the waveforms shown in the inset figures is 350 ms. The
vertical dashed blue line in (c) approximately delimits the southern edge of the DAG-2 images. As noted, spall is measured within the range of the DAG-2 SAR
image, which correlates with the loss of coherence.

TABLE III
DAG AND SPE SAMPLE CORRELATION COEFFICIENTS COMPUTED BETWEEN
THE MAXIMUM ACCELEROMETER VALUES AT EACH ACCELEROMETER
LOCATION AND THE CORRESPONDING POLSAR TIME-SERIES DIFFERENCE
MEASURES (|δ|, RMS, AND MAX) COMPUTED BETWEEN THE PASSES THAT
BRACKET THE EXPLOSION
experiments. The loss of coherence due to the SPE-6 explosion
is very concentrated on the test pad surrounding GZ, whereas
the loss of coherence due to the DAG-2 explosion is much more
spatially distributed and affects a large spatial extent of the scene.
A DAS sensor recorded the nanostrain per second from each
channel at approximately 1.0-m intervals along the fiber-optic
cable during the DAG explosion. The fiber-optic cable extended
along a surface trench and deep into boreholes; thus, the DAS
sensor was able to collect data at various depths and, important
to correlating with the measured PolSAR phenomenology, along
the surface.
Fig. 5(c) illustrates the measured DAS data along about a 1.0-
km section of the fiber-optic cable; in the figure, the vertical axis
displays time, the horizontal axis displays the distance from GZ,
and the coloring encodes the measured nanostrain per second.
The DAS records show that the upcoming P-wave impinging
on the surface near GZ is followed approximately 100-ms later
6174 IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATIONS AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 14, 2021

Fig. 6. Conceptual visualization of coregistering videoSAR images from a circular flight trajectory. A series of videoSAR frames are shown in (a), where the
green frame notionally represents the reference frame. The frames in (b) are coregistered to the reference image. Span images, from the DAG-2 and SPE-6 image
sets, masked to the common intersection of the coregistered videoSAR frames are illustrated in (c) and (d), respectively. The pixels within the intersection of all
the videoSAR frames are coaligned in this process.

by a much higher frequency arrival. This high-frequency arrival
persists to about 400–500 m from surface GZ and is the closure
of a spall gap, or “slapdown.” Spall from explosions is caused
by the tensile portion of a seismic wave overcoming the tensile
strength and overburden pressure of the geologic material, caus-
ing a physical parting [21]. The most obvious phase of ground
motion recordings in the presence of spall is the slapdown,
which is the rapid coming together of the parted material, driven
by gravity. Note that the first-arriving waves near GZ have a
somewhat chaotic nature prior to slapdown, with alternating
bands of shortening (black) and lengthening (red) closer to GZ
than about 100 m. Beyond 100-m offset, the wavefield is more
predictable with a spatially continuous shortening phase as the
first arrival, with alternating bands of lengthening and shortening
following. This is most likely a result of the raypaths from the
buried explosion being nearly vertically incident on the fiber
near GZ. DAS measures the strain rate parallel to the fiber
and has a cos 2θ falloff from parallel incidence [17]. Beyond
approximately 100 m, the raypaths have sufficient amplitude
along the fiber direction to produce expected results.
The radial extent from GZ of coherence loss in the DAG CCD
map is predicted by the measurements from the DAS sensor,
where spall is measured within the scene and has been shown
to be correlated with coherence loss [22]. The measurements in
Fig. 5(c) show that the spall terminates just outside of the SAR
scene coverage. Thus, it is expected that CCD maps would mea-
sure higher coherence in regions where the spall has terminated.
Along with the temporal analysis, the spatial changes of the
polarimetric measures caused by the explosion are of interest.
The PolSAR measures given in (21)–(23) can be extended
beyond the accelerometer locations to anywhere within the
scene. As mentioned, the frames from the match image sets
are coregistered to the corresponding reference image in the C0
image sets. The images within each Cn image set were further
WEST et al.: COMPARISON OF SURFACE PHENOMENA CREATED BY UNDERGROUND CHEMICAL EXPLOSIONS 6175

Fig. 7. Spatial extent of the PolSAR measures from the DAG-2 experiment. Shown are the percentage increase of the RMS time-series computations (compared
to a baseline measure without the explosion) for each pixel location of (a) ΔH, (b) ΔA, (c) Δα, and (d) Δζ. The measure maps are masked to the common
intersection of the coregistered videoSAR frames. It is evident that the effect of the explosion is distributed through the scene in all of the measure maps.

coregistered to a reference image, as illustrated in Fig. 6(a) and
(b). As an example, Fig. 6(c) and (d) illustrates Span images,
from the DAG-2 and SPE-6 image sets, masked to the common
intersection of the coregistered videoSAR frames. Through this
process, the videoSAR image frames from the image sets are
coregistered.
With the image sets coregistered, the PolSAR measures can
be computed at each pixel location within the intersection of the
videoSAR frames. This gives a map of the spatial variability of
the PolSAR measures. The percentage of the measure changes
can be computed by comparing the measures computed from the
passes bracketing the explosion to baseline measures computed
from passes from either before or after the explosion. The passes
from C1 and C2 in the DAG datasets were used to compute
a baseline map of the PolSAR measures. Similarly, the pre-
and postexplosion images from the SPE dataset were used to
compute baseline maps of the PolSAR measures; the pre- and
postexplosion measure maps were then averaged together. The
images in Fig. 7(a)–(d), illustrate the percentage increase of
the RMS time series computed for the ΔH, ΔA, Δα, and
Δζ measures, respectively, from the DAG-2 explosion. The
resulting maps show that the extent of the changes in scattering
physics, due to the explosion, is measurable over the extent of
the scene. Fig. 8 illustrates similar maps for the SPE-6 explosion.
Even though the magnitude of the PolSAR time-series measures
between the two experiments are different, as given in Table II,
both explosion experiments displayed a dramatic percentage
increase over the baseline metrics. However, the SPE-6 measures
are much less distributed than the DAG-2 measures and tend to
be concentrated around the pad containing GZ. This is due to
6176 IEEE JOURNAL OF SELECTED TOPICS IN APPLIED EARTH OBSERVATIONS AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 14, 2021

Fig. 8. Spatial extent of the PolSAR measures from the SPE-6 experiment. Shown are the percentage increase of the RMS time-series computations (compared
to a baseline measure without the explosion) for each pixel location of (a) ΔH, (b) ΔA, (c) Δα, and (d) Δζ. The measure maps are masked to the common
intersection of the coregistered videoSAR frames. The effect of the SPE-6 explosion is much more localized to the experimental pad than the DAG-2 explosion.

Fig. 9. DInSAR images computed from (a) the DAG-2 and (b) SPE-6 image sets. Note that the SPE-6 DInSAR image shows the deformation for ≈ ±60 m in
each cardinal direction of GZ. The DAG-2 explosion caused terrain elevation changes on the order of ±1 mm, whereas the SPE-6 explosion caused deformations
over 20 cm around GZ.
WEST et al.: COMPARISON OF SURFACE PHENOMENA CREATED BY UNDERGROUND CHEMICAL EXPLOSIONS
the energy of the explosion propagating to the surface through
granite, as opposed to through alluvium.
The final spatial measure that we consider in this article,
contrasting the role of geology, are the DInSAR maps of the DAG
and SPE scenes illustrated in Fig. 9(a) and (b), respectively. The
DAG-2 DInSAR map shows that the terrain deformation was on
the order of ±1 mm; thus, there was not a significant amount
of terrain deformation across the extent of the scene. This is
due to the alluvium not being a very conductive medium for the
energy wave of the explosion. The SPE-6 explosion had a much
more dramatic impact on surface deformation. The deformation
is much more localized around GZ and is on the order of 20 cm.
VI. CONCLUSION
The DAG-2 and SPE-6 explosions were very different. For
one, the geology at the DAG location is alluvium, whereas the
geology at the SPE location is granite; the wavefront energy of an
explosion does not propagate as well through alluvium as it does
through granite. Additionally, despite the DAG-2 experiment
having a more powerful explosion, the scaled depth of burial was
3.37 times deeper than the SPE-6 explosion. These two factors
make PolSAR surface observables more challenging with the
DAG-2 experiment.
The time-series analysis we conducted from the videoSAR
frames showed that both explosions caused a change in the
PolSAR measures. While the magnitude of the change was more
pronounced in the granite geology, a PolSAR sensor can also
measure the effects of an underground explosion in alluvium.
Time-series analysis showed that the metrics computed from
differences between the H, A, α, and ζ measures from the SPE-
6 explosion are correlated with the peak surface acceleration
measured with accelerometers. In contrast, only the measure
computed from the difference between the A PolSAR time series
was correlated with the peak surface acceleration from the DAG-
2 explosion. This reveals that anisotropy is invariant to these
two types of geology and that changes to entropy, scattering
mechanisms, and total power are geology dependent.
The time-series analysis of the fine time resolution coherence
values computed from the DAG-2 data showed that the effect
of the explosion was immediately observable to the radar. The
fine azimuth resolution CCD maps are correlated with the DAS
measures. The importance of this relationship is that the extent
of the coherence loss in the CCD map gives an estimate of the
extent of the spall induced by the explosion.
Finally, the spatial analysis showed that the PolSAR measures
and the surface deformation were much more distributed and not
quite as strong through alluvium as through granite. However,
whether the spatial distribution of the measures is due to the
actual depth or the geology is still to be determined.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This article describes objective technical results and analysis.
Any subjective views or opinions that might be expressed in
the article do not necessarily represent the views of the U.S.
Department of Energy or the U.S. Government. The Source
6177
Physics Experiments (SPE) would not have been possible with-
out the support of many people from several organizations.
The authors wish to express their gratitude to the National
Nuclear Security Administration, Defense Nuclear Nonprolifer-
ation Research and Development, and the SPE working group, a
multi-institutional and interdisciplinary group of scientists and
engineers. Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission lab-
oratory managed and operated by National Technology and En-
gineering Solutions of Sandia LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary
of Honeywell International, Inc., for the U.S. Department of En-
ergy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under Contract
DE-NA0003525. Document release number: SAND2021-6742
J
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ing physics in 1984 and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees
in optical sciences in 1987 and 1988, respectively, all
from the University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA.
He is currently a Distinguished Member of the
Technical Staff with Sandia National Laboratories,
Albuquerque, NM, USA. His current research inter-
Roger Derek West received the B.S. and M.S. de- ests include synthetic aperture radar, remote sens-
grees concurrently in electrical engineering in 2008 ing, signal and image processing, and classification
and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering in 2011, methods.
all from Utah State University, Logan, UT, USA.
He is currently a Principal Member of the Tech-
nical Staff with Sandia National Laboratories, Albu-
querque, NM, USA. His research interests include
statistical signal processing and synthetic aperture
radar.