Fast imaging of subsurface conductors using very low‐frequency electromagnetic data. (November 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Singh, Anand; Sharma, S.P.
• Is Part Of: Geophysical prospecting. Volume 63:Number 6(2015:Nov.)
• Page Start: 1355
• Page End: 1370
• Publication Date: 2015-11
• Subjects: VLF electromagnetic -- Real anomaly -- Subsurface imaging -- Current density -- Inversion; Prospecting -- Geophysical methods -- Periodicals; 622.15
• DOI: 10.1111/1365-2478.12323
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0016-8025

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The study presents a fast imaging technique for the very low‐frequency data interpretation. First, an analytical expression was derived to compute the vertical component of the magnetic field at any point on the Earth's surface for a given current density distribution in a rectangular block on the subsurface. Current density is considered as exponentially decreasing with depth, according to the skin depth rule in a particular block. Subsequently, the vertical component of the magnetic field due to the entire subsurface was computed as the sum of the vertical component of the magnetic field due to an individual block. Since the vertical component of the magnetic field is proportional to the real part of very low‐frequency anomaly, an inversion program was developed for imaging of the subsurface conductors using the real very low‐frequency anomaly in terms of apparent current density distribution in the subsurface. Imaging results from the presented formulation were compared with other imaging techniques in terms of apparent current density and resistivity distribution using a standard numerical forward modelling and inversion technique. Efficacy of the developed approach was demonstrated for the interpretation of synthetic and field very low‐frequency data. The presented imaging technique shows improvement with respect to the filtering approaches in depicting subsurface conductors. Further, results obtained using the presented approach are closer to the results of rigorous resistivity inversion. Since the presented approach uses only the real anomaly, which is not sensitive to very small isolated near‐surface conducting features, it depicts prominent conducting features in the subsurface.