GPR microwave tomography for diagnostic analysis of archaeological sites: the case of a highway construction in Pontecagnano (Southern Italy)

Interpretation of ground-penetrating radar (GPR) data usually involves data processing similar to that used for seismic data analysis, including also migration techniques. Alternatively, in the past few years, microwave tomographic approaches exploiting more accurate models of the electromagnetic scattering have gained interest, owing to their capability of providing accurate results and stable images. Within this framework, this paper deals with the application of a microwave tomography approach, based on the Born Approximation and working in the frequency domain. The case study is a survey performed during the realization of the third lane of the most important highway in southern Italy (the Salerno-Reggio Calabria, near Pontecagnano, Italy). It is shown that such an inversion approach produces well-focused images, from which buried structures can be more easily identified by comparison to traditional radar images. Moreover, the visualization of the reconstruction results is further enhanced through a three-dimensional volumetric rendering of the surveyed region, simply achieved by staggering the reconstructed GPR two-dimensional profiles. By means of this rendering it is possible to follow the spatial continuity of the buried structures in the subsurface thus obtaining a very effective geometrical characterization. The results are very useful in our case where, due to important civil engineering works, a fast diagnosis of the archaeological situation was needed. The quality of our GPR data modelling was confirmed by a test excavation, where a corner of a building and the eastern part of another house, with its courtyard, were found at the depth and horizontal position suggested by our interpretation. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.