Effects of Stress Activated Positive-Hole Charge Carriers on Radar Reflectance of Gabbro-Diorite

When load is applied to igneous or high-grade metamorphic rocks, trapped electron vacancy defects are activated and become mobile positive-hole charge carriers. These mobile charge carriers repel each other through Coulomb interactions and move outward from the stressed region. As large numbers of positive-holes reach the surface of the rock, this surface charge may cause an observable change in radar reflectance. In this experiment, a series of holes is drilled into a large gabbro-diorite boulder from the A.R. Wilson Quarry in Aromas, CA. Bustar, an expansive, non-explosive demolition agent, is poured into the holes while a 1.2 GHz radar system measures the amplitude of radar waves reflected from the rock's surface. Over the course of the experiment, the radar antenna is swept repeatedly across one face of the rock, pausing in one of twelve positions to collect data before moving to the next position. At the end of each sweep, the radar is calibrated against both a corner reflector and a flat-plate reflector. This sampling method is employed to detect and assign a cause to transient effects observed at any one location. An initial analysis of the radar data shows a high level of agreement between readings from the flat-plate and corner reflectors, supporting the use of flat-plate reflectors as a calibration source for this omnidirectional radar system. Fitting a trend to the amplitude of the wave reflected from the rock's surface is complicated by the presence of unexpected outliers and noise artifacts from the radar system itself. It appears that such a trend, if present, would likely indicate a change in amplitude of the reflected signal of less than 5 percent over the course of the experiment.