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Detection of subsurface cavity due to old mine workings using electrical resistivity tomography: A case study

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Abstract

The present study deals with the detection of underground concealed voids/cavities/galleries in Chinchuria railway station, Raniganjh coalfield in India for ground stabilization using electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) technique. Initially, numerical analysis of ERT data was carried out using Wenner–Schlumberger and dipole–dipole array configurations corrupted by 5–10% Gaussian random noise for better understanding of real field conditions. The two types of voids, i.e., water and air, filled in old mine workings were simulated accordingly in the forward model. The dipole–dipole array provides superior results compared to Wenner–Schlumberger array. Considerable accuracy of voids/cavities/galleries dimension could be acquired from dipole–dipole array. In field, two number of ERT profiles (Profile-AA′ and Profile-BB′) were conducted over the study area using said configurations. The data was acquired using Syscal-Pro resistivity imaging system with 96 electrodes and the data processing was carried out using the tomographic inversion software RES2DINV to analyse true resistivity based on the robust or blocky regularization inversion technique (L1-norm). High resistivity contrast with backgrounds in the occurrence of possible old mine workings consisting of hard rock and alternative coal pillars interconnected cavities and mining galleries was identified. Considering the indirect approach of ERT method, a borehole was being drilled along the profile-AA′ of dipole–dipole array, drilling and resistivity results indicated the presence of air-filled cavity associated with old mine workings. Hence, it is concluded that the technique used in this study is useful in increasing the technical merit of electrical resistivity interpretation for old mine workings areas.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are thankful to the Director, CSIR-CIMFR, Dhanbad and ECL mine management for their support to this study.

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Contributions

Abhay Kumar Bharti: Contribution in data acquisition, processing and interpretation and preparation of the paper. KKK Singh and CN Ghosh: Contributed in data interpretation and analysis. Kanhaiya Mishra: Contributed in field investigation.

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Correspondence to Abhay Kumar Bharti.

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Communicated by Arkoprovo Biswas

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Bharti, A.K., Singh, K.K.K., Ghosh, C.N. et al. Detection of subsurface cavity due to old mine workings using electrical resistivity tomography: A case study. J Earth Syst Sci 131, 39 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-021-01781-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-021-01781-1

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