Abstract: Shallow reflection seismic exploration is a commonly used technique in urban active fault survey.Usually,however,we can not identify the presence of faults solely based on the offset of cophase axis on seismic reflection profiles,because the effective reflection layers are few and only the reflection from the shallow top bedrock can be recognized.The stagger in shallow strata may cause lateral velocity variation.On the other hand,the tomographically imaged velocity profiles deduced from the highresolution seismic refraction profile data can reflect the change of crustal velocity structure and indicate the existence of a fault.In a region in Sichuan,the two approaches were applied to shallow seismic exploration for active fault survey along the same profile.The experimental results indicate that the joint application of the two methods can,to some extent,remedy the defect of the shallow reflection seismic exploration performed in the region with shallowly buried bedrock.