 Solution

An explosive seismic source gives an impulsive, potentially high-energy broad-band signal and can couple effectively to competent material. It can be useful where strong penetration is needed and heavy vibrating vehicles cannot reach the site. Disadvantages include destructive ground disturbance, permitting and specialist handling, variable source coupling and signature, and the cost of repeated source preparation. The comparison does not require a prescription for charge size or emplacement.

Vibroseis spreads controlled energy over a longer frequency sweep. It is repeatable, permits tailored bandwidth and repeated sweeps, and its known signal supports correlation processing and rejection of unrelated noise. It avoids the impulsive ground disruption of an explosive source. Disadvantages include vehicle access and terrain restrictions, dependence on baseplate coupling, limited force and low-frequency performance, possible harmonic distortion, and strong near-surface waves. For a fractured shallow geothermal site, test which source produces usable coherent reflections or arrivals in the desired band; nominal source energy alone does not establish data quality.