Professional Documents
Culture Documents
424a 2016
424a 2016
424a 2016
A1 : Basic physics
All EM methods have the following features in common:
(1) A primary electromagnetic (EM) field is incident on the Earth. This can
be man made or natural. The geometry can be that of a plane wave or
generated by a dipole transmitter (TX). The time variation can be a single
harmonic frequency or a pulse.
(2) The primary EM field generates secondary EM fields in the Earth (eddy
currents are induced, amplitude and phase of the signal is changed). To
first order, the Earth can be considered a conductor while the air is a
resistor. The total magnetic field that will be measured at the receiver
(RX) is the sum of the primary and secondary magnetic fields.
Geophysics 424 September 2016
(3) Surface (or borehole) measurements of total E and/or H fields are made by
placing the RX at a line/grid of points. These measurements can be made
as a function of frequency or time.
Before the advent of fast computers, only very simple, idealized geometries could
be modelled for controlled source techniques. This worked well with a conductive
target in a resistive Earth. (e.g. on the Canadian shield in the search for massive
sulphide deposits).
However, the lack of realistic numerical modelling significantly delayed the more
widespread use of the electromagnetic method where things were more
complicated.
The methods will be covered in GEOP424 in the the sequence (D)-(G) which
corresponds to increasing frequency.
In MT, the EM signals have a low frequency and thus diffuse in the Earth.
This is in contrast to wave propagation in seismic exploration.
Geophysics 424 September 2016