Location of sub-Fresnel scale mineral targets in the subsurface

With the decline of already discovered and exploited shallow mineral deposits, the mining industry is intent on finding new techniques that could explore deeper but still be cost-effective. One method that has been considered is the seismic reflection technique which has been very successful in the petroleum industry. This thesis examines one approach, seismic beamforming , which can be used in conjunction with the seismic reflection technique for the direct location of massive sulfide bodies. Implementation of the technique could prove successful in reducing exploration costs.; Beamforming can be used to extract a variety of information about a target (e.g. range, angle of emergence, temporal frequency content, power) from a propagating signal. This thesis studies the use of the angle of emergence of wavefronts propagating across a linear array of seismic receivers to assist in location of the wavefront source. The angles are back-projected to a common point which represents the point source or scatterer located at the far-field of the receiver array. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...