High data density electrical resistivity tomography survey for sediment depth estimation at the Romuald's Cave site

Abstract

Electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) surveys were conducted at the Velika Pećina near Kličevica and Romuald's Cave sites in Croatia in 2014 and 2015. The goal of the surveys was to estimate sediment depth to bedrock. However, neither survey produced reliable results at the 0.5 m probe spacing. In 2017, the Romuald's Cave site was revisited utilizing a high data density survey of 0.1 m probe spacing. All three surveys were conducted with a GeoScan RM85 in a pole–pole configuration. The high data density survey produced reliable results given the subsurface information available from three excavation trenches in the first chamber of the cave. The 2015 and 2017 ERT survey results are presented along with the results from two additional high data density ERT surveys located in the back chamber of Romuald's Cave. These results suggest that utilizing high data densities may improve the reliability of ERT surveys in cave environments.

Ground truth validated 3D electrical resistivity imaging of the archaeological deposits at Arma Veirana cave (northern Italy)

“…Changes in electrical resistivity correlate with variation in solid material (minerals and rocks), water saturation, fluid conductivity and porosity, which may be used to map stratigraphic units, geological structure, fractures, groundwater and anthropogenic structures. ERT has been successfully used to identify and map low‐resistivity volumes such as fine‐grained archaeological deposits (Abu Zeid et al ., 2019; Becker et al ., 2019), as well as typically high‐resistivity structures, including bedrock, wall pipes, roads (Tsokas et al ., 2009), foundations (Drahor et al ., 2008), ditches, palaeochannels, internal structures in mounds and barrows (Astin et al ., 2007; Papadopoulos et al ., 2010), buried chambers and cavities (Cardarelli et al ., 2006; Deiana et al ., 2018), caves, karst features, sinkholes and cavities (e.g. Smith, 1986; Maillol et al ., 1999; Van Schoor, 2002; Al‐Zoubi et al ., 2007; Ortega et al ., 2010; Zhu et al ., 2011; Carrière et al ., 2013; Satitpittakul et al ., 2013; Rainone et al ., 2015; Torrese, 2020; Torrese et al ., 2021a), and offshore archaeological features (Sarris et al ., 2014; Tonkov, 2014; Simyrdanis et al ., 2015).…”