Comparison of Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) and Co-Located Geophones of a Chemical Explosion in a Borehole at Blue Canyon Dome, Socorro, NM

Abstract:

The Blue Canyon Dome (BCD) project is a series of meso-scale chemical explosions (5 kg TNT equivalent) which aims to characterize the relationship between chemical explosion yield and damage. The first experiment took place at Blue Canyon Dome in Socorro, NM, at 200 ft depth in a borehole in a rhyolitic welded tuff. We recorded the experiment with a line of eight surface and four downhole traditional seismic geophones, and over 200 m of co-located distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) fiber. We will present observations and directly compare data from the DAS and conventional geophones, illustrating the advantages of DAS relative to conventional geophones for imaging the very near source wavefield of an explosion in hard rock. SNL is managed and operated by NTESS under DOE NNSA contract DE-NA0003525.