A geophysical survey in the archaeological site of Archontiko, Yannitsa

The ancient settlement of Archontiko is 4.5 km NW of ancient Pella in North Greece (Figure 1). The findings showed that the area was first occupied by the end of the Iron Age, i.e. 650-550 B.C. Also, showed that the topographic table of Archontiko was a major settlement of the Yannitsa province due to its concessive position by the main roads of Macedonia (Chrysostomou A. and Chrysostomou P., 1993). At the upper layers of the ruins, findings of the Roman and Byzantine times were also unearthed. The geophysical methods have been used in order to detect and map antiquities in various sites in Greece (e.g., Tsokas et al., 1994; 1995; Sawaidis et al., 1999). The resistivity mapping employing the twin probe array, the total magnetic field variations, the airborne photos and the Ground Probing Radar are the most popular methods in this respect. However, almost all geophysical methods can be used to tackle specific problems. From 1992 till 1994, many geophysical surveys were carried out in the area of Archontiko to collect mainly magnetic data. Resistivity measurements were also conducted in a small part of the area. The data presented in this study cover the northern side of the topographic table of Archontiko and they were collected during two campaigns during the summer of the years 1992 and 1993 (Figure 2)

Empirical evaluation of microtremor H/V spectral ratio

The objective of this work is to perform a purely empirical assessment of the actual capabilities of the horizontal-to-vertical (H/V) spectral ratio technique to provide reliable and relevant information concerning site conditions and/or site amplification. This objective has been tackled through the homogeneous (re)processing of a large volume of earthquakes and ambient noise data recorded by different research teams in more than 200 sites located mainly in Europe, but also in the Caribbean and in Tehran. The original recordings were first gathered in a specific database with information on both the sites and recorded events. Then, for all sites close to an instrumented reference, average site-to-reference spectral ratios (“spectral ratio method” (SSR)) were derived in a homogeneous way (window selection, smoothing, signal-to-noise ratio threshold, averaging), as well as H/V ratios (“HVSRE–RF”) on earthquake recordings. H/V ratios were also obtained from noise recordings at each site (either specific measurements, or extracted from pre- or post-event noise windows). The spectral curves resulting from these three techniques were estimated reliable for a subset of 104 sites, and were thus compared in terms of fundamental frequency, amplitude and amplification bandwidth, exhibiting agreements and disagreements, for which interpretations are looked for in relation with characteristics of site conditions. The first important result consists in the very good agreement between fundamental frequencies obtained with either technique, observed for 81% of the analyzed sites. A significant part of the disagreements correspond to thick, low frequency, continental sites where natural noise level is often very low and H/V noise ratios do not exhibit any clear peak. The second important result is the absence of correlation between H/V peak amplitude and the actual site amplification measured on site-to-reference spectral ratios. There are, however, two statistically significant results about the amplitude of the H/V curve: the peak amplitude may be considered as a lower bound estimate of the actual amplification indicated by SSR (it is smaller for 79% of the 104 investigated sites), and, from another point of view, the difference in amplitude exhibits a questioning correlation with the geometrical characteristics of the sediment/basement interface: large SSR/HV differences might thus help to detect the existence of significant 2D or 3D effects.Published75-1084.1. Metodologie sismologiche per l'ingegneria sismicaJCR Journalreserve