GPR in sediments: recent advances in stratigraphic applications

There has been a conspicuous growth in the use of GPR during the past decade, much of this work is aimed at imaging shalllow subsurface stratigraphy in Holocene and Quaternary sediments. GPR provides high resolution images of the shallow subsurface in 2-D and 3-D. 3-D surveys are especially useful for the ,visualisation of sedimentary structures, sandbody geometry and stratigraphic architecture. In addition to the visualisation of shalllow sub-surface stratigraphy GPR profdes can be used to select sample points for dating using OSL or ¹⁴C. Radar stratigraphic analysis provides a relative chronology that should be used as a framework for selecting sampling points for dating. The combination of shallow geophysics and geochronology has great potential for improving Quaternary stratigraphy, deteirmining rates of sediment accumulation, timing of stabiilisation surfaces, and the duration of erosional hiatuses. Most of the development has been within clastic sediments where clean sands and gravels deposited in aeolian, fluvial, lacustrine, coastal and glacial environments provide excellent targets for GPR. surveys at the same time GPR surveys of limestones are increasing.