Kai Lu's PhD Dissertation

Supervirtual Interferometry and Seismic Imaging of the Oludvai Gorge, Tanzania

(Ph.D. Dissertation)

Kai Lu

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology


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ABSTRACT

This dissertation presents three novel applications of supervirtual interferometry (SVI) to seismic data: 3D refraction SVI, reection SVI, and the combination of machine learning and SVI for automatic picking of SVI arrival times. The most important scienti c nding of this dissertation is that I applied refraction SVI to seismic data recorded over the Olduvai Basin, Tanzania to more than double the source-receiver o set of pickable refraction arrivals. This allows us, for the rst time, to delineate the depth of the bedrock in the Olduvai Basin. The maximum basin thickness is around 405 m, which has important palaeoantropological signi cance in that hominin palaeoenvironments in the Olduvai Basin possibly date back to 4 Ma, almost doubling the age estimated from the previous coring logs. The seismic results also map synsedimentary normal faults and trace individual strata at depth for the Olduvai Basin.