Archaeological microgravimetric prospection inside don church (Valencia, Spain)

Abstract

The microgravimetric surveying technique is applicable to the detection of shallow subsurface structures if a lateral density contrast is presented, and thus, it is a valid technique for archaeological prospection. In this paper, this technique has been revealed to be an efficient tool for archaeological studies, such as those performed inside Don Church (18th century), located in the urban area of Alfafar town, Valencia (Spain), where a buried crypt, suggested by different boreholes drilled during the second restoration process in 1993, is expected. Details of the site"s characteristics, topographic survey procedures, microgravimetric field operations, data collection and gravity reduction operations (where the inner building effect of walls, pillars and the altar is confirmed as one of the most important) are also presented. Finally, the results confirm the buried crypt.

Microgravity and Ground‐penetrating Radar Investigations of Subsurface Features at the St Catherine's Monastery, Slovakia

“…Microgravity is a geophysical method based on highly accurate measurement and interpretation of very small variations in the Earth's gravitational field, by which the subsurface archaeological features of contrasting or anomalous density can be detected. In spite of the time‐consuming data acquisition, processing and inherent ambiguity of source determination, the microgravity technique has been used for cavity detection at many archaeological sites during the past decades (Blížkovský, ; Lakshmanan and Montlucon, ; Cuss and Styles, ; Abad et al ., ; Pašteka et al ., ; Panisova and Pašteka, ; Padín et al ., ).…”

“…Rectangular prisms or vertical prisms with polygonal cross‐sections are commonly used to approximate the buildings in microgravity surveys if the gravity data needs to be corrected for these gravitational effects (e.g. Blížkovský, ; Pašteka and Zahorec, ; Debeglia and Dupont, ; Padín et al ., ). In the paper a novel method for the calculation of building effects in microgravity data processing was used, where geodetic and photogrammetric measurements are combined to obtain a three‐dimensional model of the historical monument.…”

From Micro- to Satellite Gravity: Understanding the Earth

“…Numerous archaeological publications [e.g., 18,[36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44] indicate that the ancient objects supposed for examination by the use of microgravity survey may be classified (in the decreasing order of effectiveness) by the following way: (1) pyramids and compatible objects, (2) Figure 7. A buried pavement having the positive density contrast of 400 kg/m 3 and occurring at a depth of 1.8 m in uniform medium could be easily recognized by the microgravity survey ( Figure 7A, anomalous effect from two bodies).…”

Dominant Color Extraction with K-Means for Camera Characterization in Cultural Heritage Documentation

“…In this respect, the integration of geomatics techniques such as photogrammetry, remote sensing or 3D modelling are indispensable at present, and has been a considerable step forward for new cultural heritage applications [3]. Previous examples of such applications include 3D photogrammetric and laser scanning documentation [4][5][6]; automatic change detection techniques [2]; monitoring for deformation control [7]; microgravimetric surveying technique [8] or imaging analysis [9,10] or enhancement methods [11,12] to name just a few.…”