Seismic refraction is an acoustic method primarily used for oil & gas exploration but now routinely used to solve engineering and geotechnical problems.

Sound energy is input into the ground using a hammer or buffalo gun and the resulting sound waves into the soil and along the layer boundaries. A number of geophone receivers record the “echoes” from the source and time their arrival to within 1ms.

This information is then used to ascertain the speed of sound within the medium, whether it be soil, rock or boulder clay and modelled to determine the variation in depth of the various geological layers.

The resulting geophysical data can then be correlated to any borehole logs available along the route as well as any geological information available from previous surveys. After correlation a precise geological model showing thicknesses of the different strata can be produced for the entire pipeline route.

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