Are GPR cemetery surveys safe for areas with fragile historic headstones?
Yes. GPR cemetery surveys are completely non-invasive: the radar cart rolls across the turf without touching monuments, and the radio waves are lower power than a cell-phone call. Sentry Mapping’s process leaves the soil, turf, and even the most fragile 1800s marble or sandstone headstones untouched.
Ground penetrating radar cemetery mapping is one of the gentlest ways to investigate historic burial grounds.
Sentry Mapping’s high-frequency GPR antennas transmit a brief, low-energy radio pulse through the soil and listen for reflections—it is the same non-ionizing energy used by Wi-Fi, so it poses no risk to people or stone. Because the equipment is pushed like a stroller across the grass, there is no vibration, excavation, or chemical applied; nothing ever touches the fragile markers.
The result is a full subsurface map that shows every marked and unmarked grave while leaving the site exactly as we found it. GPR does not emit any harmful radiation. The area can remain undisturbed during the course of the scan and causes no soil disturbance or any other damage to the site.
We have successfully mapped many cemeteries dating back 150+ years without any damage to headstones and markers.