The purpose of this study is to use geophysical imaging methods to identify
the conjectured location of the ‘Qadimah fault’ near the ‘King Abdullah Economic
City’, Saudi Arabia. Towards this goal, 2-D resistivity and seismic surveys were
conducted at two different locations, site 1 and site 2, along the proposed trace of
the ‘Qadimah fault’. Three processing techniques were used to validate the fault
(i) 2-D travel time tomography, (ii) resistivity imaging, and (iii) reflection trim
stacking. The refraction traveltime tomograms at site 1 and site 2 both show low-velocity
zones (LVZ’s) next to the conjectured fault trace. These LVZ’s are
interpreted as colluvial wedges that are often observed on the downthrown side of
normal faults. The resistivity tomograms are consistent with this interpretation in
that there is a significant change in resistivity values along the conjectured fault
trace. Processing the reflection data did not clearly reveal the existence of a fault,
and is partly due to the sub-optimal design of the reflection experiment. Overall, the
results of this study strongly, but not definitively, suggest the existence of the
Qadimah fault in the ‘King Abdullah Economic City’ region of Saudi Arabia.
| Date of Award | Jun 2011 |
|---|
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|
| Awarding Institution | - Physical Sciences and Engineering
|
|---|
| Supervisor | Gerard Schuster (Supervisor) |
|---|