Grant: Engage Grants Program

Unexploded ordnance (UXO) items are explosive weapons that did not explode during military exercises.These items can remain buried in shallow earth and pose a risk of accidental detonation or release of toxicchemicals. In Canada and other countries, millions of acres of land are contaminated by UXO items thatcontinue to cause severe environmental contamination and present risks to personal safety and property. UXOitems are largely metallic and have physical properties that differ significantly from the soil in which they areemplaced. UXO can therefore be detected using geophysical surveys. The geophysical data can be interpretedusing numerical methods to provide quantitative information about the buried items: for example their location,dimensions and composition. This information can help discriminate between different types of buriedmunitions and less dangerous metallic items such as shrapnel and cultural debris, leading to safer, more reliableand more cost effective remediation operations. When a UXO item lies far from any other, the geophysical dataresponse is relatively unambiguous. When there are multiple items in close proximity, their responses overlap,making for a much more challenging detection and classification problem. With such data it can be impossibleto determine how many items exist in the subsurface. The purpose of the proposed research is to develop newnumerical methods that can assess the likelihood of there being different numbers and types of items whilecalculating the required quantitative information about those multiple items. These new methods will be testedon real-life survey data to assess their readiness for transfer to industry. Black Tusk Geophysics, a Canadiancompany that is a world leader in this field, specializes in detection and classification of UXO, primarily forremediation of contaminated land. Incorporation of the new software developed through the Engage Grant intoBlack Tusk's suite of capabilities would enhance Black Tusk's competitiveness by providing novel processingalgorithms. The new software would also result in improved remediation approaches for UXO-contaminatedland in Canada.