Refraction tomography over a buried waste disposal site

Determining the depth and geometry of a landfill’s lower boundary is a difficult task. Potential field methods generally lack the necessary depth resolution, and seismic reflection data are usually contaminated by source‐generated noise in the time range of interest (<50 ms). To address this problem, we have developed a surface 2-D tomographic refraction scheme that is based on a fast finite‐difference eikonal solver and an inversion method that incorporates appropriate damping and smoothing constraints. This new scheme has been applied to a first‐arrival traveltime data set collected across adjacent landfills in northern Switzerland. High‐quality seismic data were collected along five profiles that crossed the landfills and two that sampled undisturbed natural sediments. Seismic waves generated from multiple shots were recorded on large numbers of closely spaced receivers during quiet evening periods. Reliability of the resultant velocity tomograms was estimated on the basis of (1) ray diagrams, (2) plot...