Monitoring controlled graves representing common burial scenarios with ground penetrating radar

Schultz, John J.; Martin, Michael M.

doi:10.1016/j.jappgeo.2012.05.006

Cited by 38 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 32 publications

(111 reference statements)

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“…This agrees with other studies (see, e.g. [51,52]) where the soil disturbance present in control graves becomes progressively harder to image postemplacement. Thirdly the simulated historic clandestine graves with skeletonised remains were poorly imaged in gpr surveys in 2D profiles up to nineteen weeks post-burial, but were not able to be identified after this time period (see Skel1/2 in Fig.…”

Section: Secondly the Results Of Gpr Sequential Monitoring Over Thesesupporting

confidence: 93%

“…This was in contrast to other simulated burial studies in similar depositional environments and soil types that evidenced clothing/wrapping generally provides a good radar reflective surface and hence good quality GPR hyperbolic reflectors could be obtained (e.g. see [51,52]. This could be due to the plastic covering not being fully over the pig unlike other studies (e.g.…”

Section: Secondly the Results Of Gpr Sequential Monitoring Over Thesecontrasting

confidence: 80%

“…This could be due to the plastic covering not being fully over the pig unlike other studies (e.g. [51,52]). However, bulk ground electrical resistivity techniques may be useful for forensic search teams to employ in these scenarios, as decomposition fluids are highly conductive and will not be trapped within victim clothes so will be a useful geophysical target (see [52]).…”

Section: Secondly the Results Of Gpr Sequential Monitoring Over Thesementioning

confidence: 76%

“…For each grave, the overlying vegetation was removed and c. 2 m x 2 m holes were dug in a regular pattern (Fig. 2a) as other researchers have undertaken [46][47][48][49][50][51][52]. Soil from both the top and main andisol soil were taken from all graves for analysis.…”

Section: Study Sitementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent geophysical research using simulated clandestine graves have found optimal detection methods and configurations are highly variable, depending upon a host of factors, the most important deemed to be time since burial, burial style, local soil type, vegetation and climate [35,[43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Preliminary results of sequential monitoring of simulated clandestine graves in Colombia, South America, using ground penetrating radar and botany

Molina

Pringle

Saumett

et al. 2015

Forensic Science International

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Section: Secondly the Results Of Gpr Sequential Monitoring Over Thesesupporting

confidence: 93%

Section: Secondly the Results Of Gpr Sequential Monitoring Over Thesecontrasting

confidence: 80%

Section: Secondly the Results Of Gpr Sequential Monitoring Over Thesementioning

confidence: 76%

Section: Study Sitementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Preliminary results of sequential monitoring of simulated clandestine graves in Colombia, South America, using ground penetrating radar and botany

Molina

Pringle

Saumett

et al. 2015

Forensic Science International

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A methodology for the self‐training and self‐assessing of new GPR practitioners: Measuring diagnostic proficiency illustrated by a case study of a historic African‐American cemetery for unmarked graves

Martin

Everett

2023

Archaeological Prospection

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In ground penetrating radar (GPR) surveys of African‐American cemeteries suspected to contain unmarked graves, determining the proficiency of a new GPR practitioner is vital and perhaps even more fundamental than that of the GPR hardware, deployment configuration and software. Proficiency may be defined as the practitioner's true‐positive, true‐negative, false‐positive (i.e., false alarms) and false‐negative (i.e., misses) percentages. We embarked on this research as a means to improve our own proficiency in unmarked grave detection and to develop an algorithm by which to improve the proficiency of any new GPR practitioner. After surveying the Salem Cemetery in Brazos County, TX, and the Old Danville‐Shepherd Hill Cemetery in Montgomery County, TX, we first classified subsurface targets based on in‐field, visual inspection of the real‐time, onscreen, unprocessed (except for an automatic gain control) GPR B‐scans. We then developed a proxy for ground‐truthing that allowed us to calculate the proficiency of the in‐field classifications. From this proxy, we established a quantitative prevalence threshold for identifying or rejecting a subsurface object as a target of interest. Its quantitative nature allowed us to quantitatively control and adjust that threshold, a threshold we set at 70% likely to be to a specific target of interest. We show that our classification accuracy increased from 66.2% at the Salem Cemetery to 75.0% at the Old Danville‐Shepherd Hill Cemetery and, through use of diagnostic evaluations originally developed for medical imaging and herein applied to geophysics, showed that the accuracy improved due to increases in true‐negative classifications, that is, in examining real‐time, onscreen, mostly unprocessed GPR B‐scans, discerning a potential target and correctly concluding it was not an unmarked grave. This research outlines the procedure we developed to measure the proficiency of a new GPR practitioner.

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The challenges of signal interpretation of burials in ground‐penetrating radar

Martindale,

Wadsworth,

Simons

et al. 2023

Archaeological Prospection

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The identification of unmarked graves and burials is one of most common applications of ground‐penetrating radar (GPR) in archaeology. Despite a high frequency of use and a long history of experimentation, there appears to be considerable variability on what indicates a burial in GPR data—likely a consequence of heterogeneity in geological contexts, age and in burial practices. Although general statements about uncertainty in GPR interpretation may be acceptable in archaeological applications, the interpretative process becomes more complicated when GPR is used to locate unmarked graves in culturally, politically and legally contested locations such as at former Indian Residential Schools (IRSs) in Canada. In this paper, we review international applications of the technique and identify trends and traits between the authors' use of GPR to identify burials. By categorizing the studies based on the GPR reflection signatures identified, our review demonstrates that there is modest consensus across the 77 documents reviewed for what represents a burial. Interrogating these findings, we identify a range of potential contributors to signal heterogeneity and outline potential steps forward to a higher confidence or more statistically robust identification of unmarked graves using GPR.

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Monitoring controlled graves representing common burial scenarios with ground penetrating radar

Cited by 38 publications

References 32 publications

Preliminary results of sequential monitoring of simulated clandestine graves in Colombia, South America, using ground penetrating radar and botany

Preliminary results of sequential monitoring of simulated clandestine graves in Colombia, South America, using ground penetrating radar and botany

A methodology for the self‐training and self‐assessing of new GPR practitioners: Measuring diagnostic proficiency illustrated by a case study of a historic African‐American cemetery for unmarked graves

The challenges of signal interpretation of burials in ground‐penetrating radar

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