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A lightweight geophysical survey method was used to estimate quarry filling layer thickness based on EMI and DCP data.

At the end of the Bronze Age, technical improvements have made possible the rise of the first generation of major sea powers around the Mediterranean realm, such as Etruria in Italy. The Etruscan coast was fringed by large lagoons, of which only one survives today: the lagoon of Orbetello. This peculiar lagoon is held between two sand spits that connect the former island of Argentario to the mainland. A third sand spit lies in the middle of the lagoon, and supports the Etruscan city of Orbetello. Archeological investigations suggest that the lagoon was connected to the sea through a natural outlet until the 9th century BCE, when an integrated management plan of the lagoon was implemented to optimize fishing. Subsequent closure of the natural outlet implies that lagoon management heavily subsequently relied on man-made openings to maintain the lagoon connected to the sea and nearby rivers. Today, three canals connect the lagoon to the sea. Management plans were implemented in the late 20th Century to fight a massive phase of eutrophication driven by excess release of fertilizers. Eutrophication as responsible for extensive fish kills, and to the release of mercury in the water column. Little is known about lagoon management and the evolution of the city before the 17th century CE, but it is clear that the wealth of the city of Orbetello and the health of its lagoon have been strongly correlated over the past three millennia. To track this coevolution, we conducted a coring campaign coupled to sub-bottom imaging in the very shallow (2) lagoon. iXblue Echoes 10 000 sub-bottom profiler reveals individual layers that can be traced across the lagoon, allowing stratigraphic correlations between cores, and highlighting the environmental significance of the sedimentary facies. Architecture of the deposits reveals a pronounced transgression of the lagoon over its shallowly inward-dipping margins since Antiquity. This led to the flooding of an array of regularly-spaced Roman farms along its southern shorelines, and to a more important flooding of Etruscan structures. Lagoon level rise was driven by a combination of regional sea level rise and fluctuations in the hydraulic balance of the lagoon, controlled by the opening and closure of canals. Sub-bottom imaging reveals buried structures tentatively interpreted as docks and canals used for navigation and salinity control. Sediment analyses under XRF scanning, Rock Eval, and hyperspectral imaging reveals that sedimentation is marked by an alternation of black, shelly organic silty clays and decimeter-thick layers of broken shells. Radiocarbon dating indicates that the cores capture up to five millennia of sedimentation. Ongoing analysis of mercury and phosphorus content, ostracods and pollen assemblages, and chromatic pigments in the organic fractions are expected to document the links between sediment facies, eutrophication and salinity crises, and the rise and demise of land and lagoon management through the past three millennia. A sub-bottom profiling campaign in June 2022 is aimed at mapping the observed structure. Further coring is planned near putative man-made structures next Fall.

An electromagnetic (EM) tool working in the medium-frequency range allows the determination of the electric conductivity and dielectric permittivity of soils with a single measurement. It brings information about different state parameters of soils, especially their water and clay contents for a significant volume of investigation. To investigate these properties, a medium-frequency-range EM prototype, the CE120, was built using a perpendicular coil Slingram configuration with a working frequency of 1.56 MHz and a fixed coil spacing of 1.2 m. This configuration was chosen using modeling with the purpose of measuring electric resistivities up to a few thousands of ohm-meters and relative dielectric permittivities as low as two. These thresholds match the expected parameters values in the medium frequency range. Moreover, the CE120 characteristics allowed for an investigation depth between 2 and 2.5 m, depending on the nature of the soil. The prototype was tested on two different soils with water variations: sandy alluvia and clay-loam soil. The electric resistivities of the sandy alluvia can reach [Formula: see text], which is higher than the detection threshold of the CE120. Only the measured dielectric permittivity can be interpreted in terms of water contrasts. Four different zones corresponding to four different water contents were detected. For the clay-loam soil, the electric conductivity and dielectric permittivity measure the water content variations created by the wheat roots. At 1.56 MHz, the high-frequency equations linking the dielectric permittivity to the volumetric water content have a limited validity. Laboratory measurements for each different soil type are necessary to deduce empirical relations. In both cases, the results are coherent with the measured mass water content variations.

International audience; Laboratory physical modelling and non-contacting ultrasonic techniques are frequently proposed to tackle theoretical and method- ological issues related to geophysical prospecting. We used an innovative experimental set-up to perform laser-Doppler acoustic probing of granular materials with varying water levels to target near-surface hydrogeological applications. The preliminary results presented here show a clear influence of the water level on both first arrival times and dispersion of guided waves, and significant differences in terms of amplitudes. They validate the use of such approach to benchmark recently developed methods for water saturation detection in hydrogeophysics.

The renewal of existent railways requires the characterisation of the mechanical properties of railway platforms (RP), thus raising the need to select appropriate maintenance actions. Conventional techniques (geotechnical soundings, coring) remain local, destructive, expensive and with low yields. Using non-destructive investigation techniques for local diagnosis and monitoring thus appears of great interest for enhancing RP control. Seismic surface-wave methods have been proposed to estimate in situ mechanical parameters of the superficial layers below railways. In this context, a joint geotechnical and seismic survey was carried out along the Northern Europe high-speed line (LGV) in order to precisely determine the origins of a phenomenon affecting the geometry of the track. Strong a priori knowledge of the RP structure allowed for inverting dispersion measurements for 1D VS models along the track. The results showed a contrast of VS in the loess lying below the RP, between areas where the phenomenon was observed and those it was not. This contrast was confirmed by Bender Elements measurements of VS performed on core drilling samples, and corresponded to the lateral variations observed along the track. These results encourage considering dispersion measurements as an appropriate tool of RP monitoring.