Determination of the Applicability of High-Resolution X-Band Satellite Radar for the Archaeological Prospection by a Comparison with a Ground-Based Survey

Abstract

It was not until the launch of TerraSAR-X in 2007 that satellite radar became high-resolution enough for archaeological prospection. All former sensors had a resolution of several metres, which is far too low to resolve faint archaeological features. TerraSAR-X now provides images of around 1 m resolution. Unfortunately, the frequency of the satellite is X-band and therefore very high. Until now, common opinion in the remote sensing community has been that these radar waves have no depth Penetration into the soil. However, the comparison of a TerraSAR-X image over a Roman fortress in Syria with the corresponding depth slices of ground-penetrating radar show that there should be a penetration depth of a few decimetres in desert soil.