Borehole Radar at an Underground Ventersdorp Reef site

Borehole radar is an electromagnetic tool that can be applied to assist in the delineation of orebody geometry, ideally using routinely drilled cover and exploration boreholes. Successful trials of borehole radar for delineating reef horizons on South African gold and platinum mines have led to the development of a borehole radar system specifically designed for routine application in those environments. The radar design includes novel elements, including a receiver with instantaneous sampling down the borehole, and it is implemented in probes that can operate in 48 mm boreholes, with development planned for 38 mm boreholes. The radar is known as the Aardwolf BR40.The need for information about dislocations of 3 m to reefs determines the desirable radar resolution while available access geometry determines the range requirement. The electrical properties of typical gold and platinum rocks show that the range/resolution trade-off is feasible for the majority of economically important reef horizons. Boreholes drilled horizontally or upwards are accessed using a borehole crawler.Trials of the radar show that it meets its performance specification. The radar is robust enough for routine work underground and is easy to use. The borehole radar is a useful addition to the toolbox of the mining geoscientist because it can give information about the reef plane along a line, rather than the single point information about the reef given by a borehole.

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Single Borehole Radar for Well Logging in a Limestone Formation: Experiments and Simulations

Zhao

Huo

et al. 2016

JEEG

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A borehole radar (BHR) prototype system was developed for the exploration of complicated oil and gas reservoirs. To verify the performance of the system, single-hole reflection imaging experiments were carried out in an abandoned limestone mine. In the physical experiments, the cliff wall and a metal plate were selected as the imaging targets to evaluate the detection performance of the prototype system. The average filter method was used to remove the background noise, then the frequency–wave number (F-K) imaging algorithm was adopted for radar imaging. The unknown fractures surrounding the borehole produced complex reflections that were not beneficial to effectively extract the target echo when the down-hole sensor was shifted along the borehole. However, by fixing the down-hole sensor and shifting the target, the detection range of the radar system extended up to about 10 m in the limestone formation. A 2-D finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) modeling method was also implemented to simulate the experimental procedure, and demonstrated that the prototype system can provide enough accuracy to predict the echo signal characteristics and reproduce the radar response in the formation. The combination of field experiment, theoretical analysis, and numerical simulation not only objectively validated the fundamental performance of the radar prototype, but also generated some new concepts for further improvement on the radar system design.

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Borehole Radar at an Underground Ventersdorp Reef site

Cited by 3 publications

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Broadband synthetic aperture borehole radar interferometry

Broadband synthetic aperture borehole radar interferometry

A borehole radar system for South African gold and platinum mines

Single Borehole Radar for Well Logging in a Limestone Formation: Experiments and Simulations

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