MAPPING THE ANCIENT PORT

AT THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL
SITE OF ITANOS (GREECE)
USING SHALLOW SEISMIC
METHODS

Presented by Sumana Roy

Enrollment No – 18612013
MSc Applied Geology
Department of Earth Sciences
Indian Institute Of Technology Roorkee
•A shallow seismic survey was carried out at the archaeological site of Itanos, Crete, Greece
to locate and map the ancient port.

•The target layer in the area surveyed consists of Permian-Triassic phyllites covered by
alluvial deposits.

•Seismic refraction and reflection experiments were carried out along eight profiles with a
total length 580m.

Itanos is a former
municipality in the Lasithi
regional unit,
eastern Crete, Greece.
•In seismic investigations, seismic waves, created by artificial sources such as a hammer,
weight drop or vibrator, propagate through the earth and are refracted or reflected at
interfaces, where the seismic velocity or density changes.

•Geophones laid on a single line, record the waves returning to the surface after travelling
different distances through the ground. By measuring the travel time between the break and
the recording of a seismic signal, the seismic velocity in the subsurface and the depth of the
interfaces may be inferred.

•In seismic refraction method,

information is deduced from the
travel time of the critically refracted
seismic waves.

•Eight P-wave refraction profiles

were selected (Fig 1) with a total
length of 580m and geophone
spacing 2m. The hammer and the
seisgun (Betsy) seismic sources, as
well as 14Hz geophones were used.
Five shots were selected on most
seismic lines: one in the middle, two
near shots at the edges of the line
and two far shots.
•Typical seismic records for line S1
are shown in Fig 2. Depth sections
were constructed from the modified
delay-time inversion method. For
line SI, the top layer exhibits a P-
wave velocity of 448 ms1.

•The second layer shows a P-wave

velocity of 1741ms1 and
corresponds to water saturated
clayey soil(Fig 3a).

•The deeper layer shows an

increased P-wave velocity of 2664
ms1. This layer is attributed to the
phyllites (basement) or to its
eroded cover.

Figure 3. Travel-time curves and depth sections from refraction

experiments for lines SI (a) : o, first layer; , second layer; þ, third
layer.
•The seismic data for line SII (Figure 3b) were additionally interpreted using the generalized
reciprocal method.

Figure 3. Travel-time curves and depth sections from refraction experiments for line SII
(b): o, first layer; , second layer; þ, third layer.

•Depth sections were

additionally constructed from
the P- and S-wave refraction
experiments for line L1 (Fig 4).

•On these sections, the depths

of the refractors correlate well.
Shear wave velocities indicate
that the first layer is attributed
to unsaturated soils and the
second layer to saturated ones.
 •The seismic data for line SII (Fig 3b) were
additionally interpreted using the genera-lized
reciprocal method. Velocity analysis indicated
lateral velocity variations (Fig 5) for layers 2 and
3.

•The depths to the second interface from the

modified delay-time method (Fig 3b) and the
Generalized Reciprocal Method (GRM) (Fig 5) are
similar for distances ranging from 30 to 60 m. At
these distances the P-wave velocity of the second
layer, deduced from GRM (Fig 5), is the same as
that obtained from the modified delay-time (Fig
3b).

Figure 5. Velocity analysis (up) and depth section (down) computed

with the GRM technique for line SII.

•The first breaks on the field and

synthetic seismograms were
subsequently compared.

• The relative error exhibits

values greater than 10% in two
areas for first arrivals
corresponding to head waves
from the shallow interface (Fig
6).
•Seismic waves are reflected at discontinuities in the ground, i.e. horizons at which the
seismic or acoustic impedance changes. The reflected waves are usually received by a
string of geophones on the surface.

•The seismic refraction method requires that the seismic velocity increases with each
successively deeper layer. In contrast, the seismic reflection technique involves no prior
assumptions about seismic velocity.

•A high-resolution reflection survey has been conducted along the line SI (Fig 1) using the
Betsy as the seismic source, with 100 Hz receivers and a 24-channel engineering
seismograph (EG&G Geometrics 2401).

•First, a noise test was performed in order to distinguish signal from noise and to select the
optimum source–receiver offsets for the near and far geophones.

•The geophone spacing was set initially to 2m and the offset range was 4–98 m. The
geophone spacing was then set to 0.5m and the offset range was 4–100 m.

•Taking into consideration the results from the noise test, the sampling interval of the
seismic reflection experiment was set to 0.1 ms, resulting in 102 ms record length.

•The geometry was offend with a 7m minimum offset and 0.5m geophone spacing. The fold
of the reflection survey was 600% and the total length of the seismic reflection line was
80 m.
Fig 7 displays common shot
gather records prior (on the right)
and after (on the left) filtering with
a deconvolution operator.
Reflected waves are observed at
channels 16–24 between 30 and
35 ms.

•Two reflectors are present on the stacked

section (Fig 8). Reflector 1 (two-way time
21–28ms and depth 12–19 m) corresponds
to the top of the basement. The quality of
the reflected waves from a deeper interface
(reflector 2) is degraded (two-way time 30–
40 ms). Nevertheless, reflectors 1 and 2
exhibit similar relief.
This seismic survey indicates that the ancient port was restricted to the rectangular region
surrounded by the sea, two acropolis to the north and a hill to the south. The three-
dimensional image of the basement relief correlates well with the results from other
geophysical surveys such as soil resistance mapping, electromagnetic mapping and
electrical tomography. Shear-wave refraction experiments on selected lines were useful for
water table verification, being at depths ranging from 1 to 2 m. The top of the basement
image obtained by the seismic refraction survey was also verified by the seismic reflection
experiment along line SI. A limited number of shallow boreholes could be useful in
verifying the geophysical results.

Figure 9. Soil resistance map for

grids Port A and Port C and soil
conductivity map for grid Port B
superimposed on the basement
Relief map. Red colour on
electrical maps corresponds to
high resistance.
A.VAFIDIS, M.MANAKOU, G. KRITIKAKIS,
D.VOGANATSIS, A. SARRIS, Th. KALPAXIS 2003.
Mapping the Ancient Port at the Archaeological Site of
Itanos (Greece) Using Shallow Seismic Methods.
Archaeological Prospection Archaeol. Prospect. 10, 163–
173 (2003)