Imaging a vertical shaft from a tunnel using muons

Abstract:

We use muon technology to image a vertical shaft from a tunnel. The density of the materials through which cosmic ray muons pass influences the flux of muons because muons are more attenuated by higher density material. Additionally, muons can travel several kilometers allowing measurements through deep rock. Density maps are generated from muon flux measurements to locate subsurface features like tunnel structures and ore bodies. Additionally, muon data can be jointly inverted with other data such as gravity and seismic to produce higher quality earth models than produced from a single method. We collected several weeks of data in a tunnel to image a vertical shaft. The minimum length of rock between the vertical shaft and the detector is 120 meters and the diameter of the vertical shaft is 4.6 meters. The rock the muons traveled through consists of Tertiary age volcanic tuff and steeply dipping, small-displacement faults. Results will be presented for muon flux in the tunnel and Monte-Carlo simulations of this experiment. Simulations from both GEANT4 (Geometry And Tracking version 4) and MCNP6 (Monte-Carlo N-Particle version 6) models will be compared. The tunnel overburden from muon measurements is also estimated and compared with actual the overburden.

Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.