Detecting Buried Faults by Electrical Resistivity Methods in Engineering Site Investigations: a Case Study

In recent years, near-surface geophysical methods particularly geoelectrical prospecting has become a standard tool for the study of engineering problems. Detecting buried faults is a critical step in engineering because concealed faults may affect urban facilities like roads, dams, power lines and urban planning and development. Furthermore in active tectonically regions it is important to study how faults affect geological structures of the region. Hdishahr is a sedimentary plain located in North West of Iran. There are many faults in Hadishahr plain but because of high vegetation in the region, finding an obvious trace of a fault is not so easy. In this project we try to investigate how these faults affect underground geological structures by geoelectrical modeling. Geoelectrical modeling is a suitable way for detecting faults. Being cheep, accessible and accurate of geoelectrical methods led to massive use of these methods in all kinds of investigations specially engineering site investigations.