The near-surface soft structures can cause the seismic site effects which are the main reasons to intensify the earthquake hazard. So the investigation of the near-surface structure is a key step to site effects evaluation, site classification and seismic hazard prevention and reduction. Seismic noises are extensively used as sources in deep and shallow structures studies in recent years because they exist anytime and anywhere with relative wide spectral energy distribution. The investigation of shallow structure with seismic noise can be economically performed to deeper range comparing to active source exploration, and can be carried out in noisy site. This paper shortly reviews the most typical noise exploration methods in shallow structures, including data collection, processing and their most recent development.[著者文摘]