Surface-wave tomography for mineral exploration: a successful combination of passive and active data (Siilinjarvi phosphorus mine, Finland)

Abstract

Surface wave (SW) methods offer promising options for an effective and sustainable development of seismic exploration, but they still remain under-exploited in hard rock sites. We present a successful application of active and passive surface wave tomography for the characterization of the southern continuation of the Siilinjarvi phosphate deposit (Finland). A semi-automatic workflow for the extraction of the path-average dispersion curves (DCs) from ambient seismic noise data is proposed, including identification of time windows with strong coherent SW signal, azimuth analysis and two-station method for DC picking. DCs retrieved from passive data are compared with active SW tomography results recently obtained at the site. Passive data are found to carry information at longer wavelengths, thus extending the investigation depth. Active and passive DCs are consequently inverted together to retrieve a deep pseudo-3D shearwave velocity model for the site, with improved resolution. The southern continuation of the mineralization, its contacts with the host rocks and different sets of cross-cutting diabase dikes are well imaged in the final velocity model. The seismic results are compared with the latest available geological models to both validate the proposed workflow and improve the interpretation of the geometry and extent of the mineralization. Important large-scale geological boundaries and structural discontinuities are recognized from the results, demonstrating the effectiveness and advantages of the methods for mineral exploration perspectives.