Muons tomography applied to geosciences and volcanology

TL;DR

This paper discusses muon tomography as a novel, non-invasive method for imaging large geological structures, offering advantages over traditional techniques in geosciences and volcanology.

Contribution

It introduces muon tomography with a focus on photo-active detectors as a complementary approach to existing geophysical imaging methods.

Findings

Muon flux attenuation effectively images geological structures.

Muon tomography provides a non-invasive alternative to traditional methods.

Potential for improved imaging of volcanoes and large geological targets.

Abstract

Imaging the inner part of large geological targets is an important issue in geosciences with various applications. Dif- ferent approaches already exist (e.g. gravimetry, electrical tomography) that give access to a wide range of informations but with identified limitations or drawbacks (e.g. intrinsic ambiguity of the inverse problem, time consuming deployment of sensors over large distances). Here we present an alternative and complementary tomography method based on the measurement of the cosmic muons flux attenuation through the geological structures. We detail the basics of this muon tomography with a special emphasis on the photo-active detectors.