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Abstract: We designed, constructed and operated a cylindrical, scintillating fibres, tracker detector in order to measure the directional flux of cosmic ray muons underground. This instrument named Muon Ground Radiograph (MGR) was developed to study the fluctuation of the density in the soil that causes detection anisotropies in the arrival direction of cosmic ray muons observed in a tracker detector located underground. Density fluctuations may reveal hidden cavities or buried structures and can contribute to archaeological findings. The shape of the detector we used, for this purpose, is cylindrical, 14cm diameter and 224cm height, and it can be inserted into a 20cm diameter hole in the ground at a maximum depth of 30m. This paper will describe the instrument design and construction and also report some results of two observational campaigns in the town of Aquileia the Claudio and Traiano port. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We will illustrate the design, assembly and test of an innovative, compact and low-cost cosmic-ray tracking detector developed at the INFN laboratories of Trieste and Perugia (Italy), which makes use of the most recent technologies for scintillating fibres and multianode photomultiplier tubes. The detector has been designed in particular for underground investigation: it lies inside a cylinder made of aluminium and can be lowered down a 20cm diameter hole drilled into the ground, reaching a depth of 10–30m. It measures the cosmic ground penetrating muon flux as a function of the direction to obtain information about the density of the material through which the cosmic rays travel before reaching the detector itself. The whole instrumentation (that is, the detector, a computer for data acquisition and a power supply), is simple to install and easy to handle. Examples of fields in which the instrument can be useful are geology, archaeology, spelaeology. In the last few months we tested the performance of the detector in two different Italian archaeological sites (Aquileia, UD and Fiumicino, RM). The acquired data are presented in this work. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]