Objective:

The Defense Science Board has estimated that there are 1,400 sites suspected of containing unexploded ordnance (UXO) that comprise approximately 10 million acres. Typical sites encompass thousands of acres, with many exceeding 10,000 acres. A comprehensive wide area assessment program can have an immediate impact on the UXO remediation problem. By some estimates, up to 80% of the 10 million acres are, in fact, free of UXO. A technology that can accurately delineate the areas on each site that are and, more importantly, are not contaminated would lead to an immediate reduction by 80% of the area that must be carefully examined and cleaned. The ESTCP Wide Area Assessment (WAA) Program is designed to demonstrate the effectiveness of various technologies, either alone or in combination, as tools for WAA at Department of Defense sites. The objective of this project is to collect full-field magnetometer data by transects with the Multi-Sensor Towed Array Detection System (MTADS) to support the rapid delineation of UXO-contaminated sites such as impact areas and bombing targets.

Technology Description:

MTADS consists of a vehicle with a low magnetic signature that is used to tow a linear array of eight full-field cesium vapor magnetometers. This technology is capable of collecting data over large areas (i.e., 25 acres per day) with roughly 6 centimeter along track (based on a 6 mile per hour survey speed) and 25 centimeter cross track sampling density. In this project, MTADS will be used to collect transect survey data over the demonstration site, providing coverage of approximately 1% of the total area. Automated routines will be used to rapidly extract the locations and magnitudes of detected anomalies from the data.

Expected Benefits:

The geophysical survey sampling technique to be demonstrated will aid in the rapid delineation of target areas within a defined survey area. A typical MTADS deployment involves the collection of high-quality, total coverage data over a site of interest followed by analysis of anomalies manually selected from the data. Using this methodology, probabilities of detection of 95 to 97% with locational accuracies of better than 15 cm have been demonstrated in the field. To delineate UXO target areas, the automated analysis of data collected from transects will rapidly provide anomaly locations and density information. This technique will help identify a fraction of the site as not contaminated with UXO at a statistically defensible level of confidence. (Anticipated Project Completion - 2008)

Principal Investigator:
Dr. Daniel Steinhurst
Nova Research, Inc.
1900 Elkin Street, Suite 230
Alexandria, VA 22308
Telephone: (202) 767-3556
Fax: (202) 404-8119
E-mail: dan.steinhurst@nrl.navy.mil

DoD Liaison:
Dr. Herb Nelson
Naval Research Laboratory
Chemistry Division, Code 6110
4555 Overlook Avenue SW
Washington, DC 20375-5342
Telephone: (202) 767-3686
Fax: (202) 404-8119
E-mail: herb.nelson@nrl.navy.mil