Exploratory research of technology development on high-resolution subsurface fracture imaging by the straight-forward muon

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

As Tanaka and his group recently succeeded to image subsurface magma chambers by Muography, this method was initiated in Japan and has a potential to bring us a new exploration tool in the subsurface exploration field. However, to spread this method into the subsurface exploration field, it is necessary to image not only magma chambers but also fractures which are one step harder in terms of their smaller density contrast as well as their smaller sizes. This study is then to aims at fracture imaging. However, we realized that Tanaka and his group are also promoting the same idea on the way of our study, and they are almost successful to trace a mass transfer of meteoric water along an active fault. This method seems already an applicable exploration method. Therefore, we have slightly changed our study objectives to seek optimum fault observation localities in the Hakkoda and Okiura volcanic fields in Aomori Prefecture. We have studied a possibility of the intra-borehole Muography in the geothermal exploration. We have also initiated to organize the collaboration study on Muography under the Tanaka and his group’s umbrella (Muraoka et al., 2012; Tanaka and Muraoka, 2012).