G. F. West

The Electromagnetic Response of a Conductive Inhomogeneity in a Layered Earth

A numerical model has been constructed to determine the three‐dimensional electromagnetic fields in the vicinity of a finite, thin, conductive plate buried in a horizontally stratified, conductive environment. The EM source is a rectangular loop. The problem is formulated as an integral equation for the electric field in the plate. However, to avoid certain numerical difficulties, the actual working variables are a pair of scalar potentials which represent divergence‐free and curl‐free current flows in the plate, and whose values are known at the nodes of a rectangular grid. The basic integral equation is then reduced to a set of linear equations which can be solved numerically.The cases modeled are a simulation of the Turam method. The models were a shallow plate and a deep plate in a conductive half‐space, a deep plate in an insulating host rock under a conductive layer, and a deep plate in a conductive host rock under a conductive layer. In all cases, the top of the plate was separated from the overbur...

A time‐domain EM system measuring the step response of the ground

A wide-band time-domain EM system, known as UTEM, which uses a large fixed transmitter and a moving receiver has been developed and used extensively in a variety of geologic environments. The essential characteristics that distinguish it from other systems are that its system function closely approximates a step-function response measurement and that it can measure both electric and magnetic fields. Measurement of step rather than impulse response simplifies interpretation of data amplitudes, and improves the detection of good conductors in the presence of poorer ones. Measurement of electric fields provides information about lateral conductivity contrasts somewhat similar to that obtained by the gradient array resistivity method.

Noise processing techniques for time‐domain EM systems

A variety of signal processing techniques can be used to minimize the effects of noise on linear, wideband, electromagnetic (EM) systems operating in the time‐domain. All systems use repetitive waveforms with polarity reversal in alternate half‐cycles. Exponential averaging or digital integration (stacking) is employed to increase signal‐to‐noise (S/N) ratios by limiting the noise acceptance to narrow frequency bands centered on odd harmonics of the repetition frequency, the width of the acceptance bands being inversely proportional to stacking time. For certain types of nonstationary noise (e.g., occasional transients) or coherent noise (e.g., powerlines) it is possible to increase S/N ratios above those obtained by simple stacking for an equal time by use of techniques such as pruning, tapered stacking or randomized stacking. With some system waveforms and when the noise spectrum is not “white”, use of preemphasis filtering in the transmitter and a corresponding de‐emphasis filter in the receiver may si...

The role of simple computer models in interpretations of wide‐band, drill‐hole electromagnetic surveys in mineral exploration

Drill‐hole geophysical surveys are a means of extending the search for massive‐sulfide deposits to depths which are inaccessible to conventional surface techniques. The present investigation combines field and model studies of an electromagnetic (EM) prospecting method which utilizes a large, fixed transmitter loop with a downhole, axial‐component magnetic field sensor (solenoid). The system is shown to be well‐suited for detection of deeply buried massive‐sulfide conductors located in resistive host rock at appreciable distances from the drill hole. We propose that drill‐hole survey data collected with a wide‐band large‐loop EM system can be routinely used for estimating target parameters by forward modeling with two simple conductor shapes: a plate and a sphere in free space. Analysis of confined conductors is facilitated by “eigencurrent decomposition” of the induced current vortex into a set of noninteracting loops with simple RL‐circuit behavior. Solutions have been implemented in interactive compute...

Crooked‐line 2D seismic reflection imaging in crystalline terrains: Part 1, data processing

For cost and access reasons, most of the seismic reflection data collected in crystalline terrains have been acquired by 2D crooked‐line profiling. When the survey geometry is significantly irregular and the geologic structures have cross‐profile dip, several standard 2D imaging procedures severely underperform. As a result, reflection signal is poorly aligned across individual common midpoint (CMP) gathers, and much is lost during the CMP stack. To improve imaging, either the methods used to align signal before stack need to be modified or more tolerant methods of combining trace signals than the standard CMP stack need to be applied.Because a high‐fold 2D crooked‐line profile is really a 3D survey of a swath of terrain around the processing line, better signal alignment before CMP stacking may be achieved by revisiting the traveltime equation and including the cross‐dip terms into the moveout calculations. Therefore, in addition to the correction of NMO and in‐line dip moveout (DMO), we also locally com...

A simple parametric model for the electromagnetic response of an anomalous body in a host medium

A simple approximate representation of the spectral response of an arbitrary kind of electromagnetic (EM) prospecting system to a small conductive target in a conductive environment has been derived. The representation contains the direct response from the layered host medium and the first‐order effects of eddy current induction, current channeling, magnetic induction, and the coupling between eddy current and magnetic inductions in the anomalous body, as modified by the host medium. The only significant computational task in the representation is evaluation of a few Green’s functions for the host medium. As a guide to establishing proper approximations, a fundamental study of integral equations is presented. Very simple solutions for the secondary or scattering sources which represent the EM effect of the body are obtained for a few basic cases. Equations for more general cases are complicated by additional terms in the Green’s functions which represent ac interaction between scattering sources and the h...

Origin of deep crystal reflections: seismic profiling across high-grade metamorphic terranes in Canada☆

Abstract In an attempt to better understand the origin of deep crustal reflections LITHOPROBE has sponsored or co-sponsored Seismic reflection surveys across tracts of high-grade metamorphic rock in the Archean Superior craton, the Proterozoic Grenville orogen and the Phanerozoic Cordilleran orogen. Common to these three diverse terranes are near-surface zones of prominent Seismic reflectivity that are typically associated with velocity discontinuities at highly strained contacts between gneissic rocks of varying lithology. At some locations the reflective layering resulted from transposition and rearrangement of previously layered rocks (stratified assemblages, sills, etc.), whereas in other regions it was generated by extreme attenuation, stretching and ductile flow of weakly layered or irregularly organized rocks. It seems likely that compositionally layered gneissic rock is a common source of reflections in the deep crust, with reflections originating at lithological boundaries and zones of mylonite.

Inductive interaction between polarizable conductors: An explanation of a negative coincident‐loop transient electromagnetic response

Theoretically, the coincident‐loop transient electromagnetic (TEM) voltage responses of an earth with frequency‐invariant conductivities and permeabilities cannot change sign. In Australia, where prospecting is often done with the SIROTEM system operating in coincident‐loop mode, the response occasionally changes sign at late times from the normal positive transient to negative values. Because it has been shown that the observed negatives cannot be explained by poor instrument design, normal displacement currents, dispersive permeabilities, or geometric effects, the mechanism causing the negatives is now inferred to be a frequency dependence (dispersion) of the conductivity. To obtain negative values, the conductivity must increase with frequency over the spectral range covered by the TEM survey (∼10–1000 Hz). Slightly dispersive conductivities are observed by induced‐polarization (IP) surveys and are geologically common; however, field experience suggests that whereas some negatives are associated with I...

A robust integral equation solution for electromagnetic scattering by a thin plate in conductive media

An integral equation solution for electromagnetic (EM) scattering by a thin plate robustly models scattering in either perfectly resistive, very resistive, or conducting host media. Because the solution is not restricted to modeling certain ranges of host conductivity, it can be used to model scattering over the large ranges in conductivity encountered in geophysics.The solution is developed around a pair of coupled integral equations for the scattering distributions on the plate. In one equation, the scattering distribution is the scalar potential set up by the scattered charge distribution. In the other, it is the component of the scattered magnetic field perpendicular to the plate. The equations are solved numerically using the Galerkin method with simple polynomial basis functions. To find the fields scattered by the conductor, the scattered current density is first calculated from the scalar potential and the magnetic field. The scattered fields can then be found by integrating over the scattered current density.To test the solution, we model horizontal loop EM responses with our solution and compare the results with those from two established integral equation solutions. One of these solutions models pure induction and is used to test our solution when the host is perfectly resistive. Agreement with this solution is very good. Comparisons with the other solution, an electric field integral equation, tests our solution when the host medium is conductive. Agreement with the latter solution is good where induction is not too strong: i.e., where the electric-field solution is known to work well. Our solution therefore can accurately model EM scattering by a plate in a host medium with any conductivity.

Thin thrust sheet formation of the Kapuskasing structural zone revealed by Lithoprobe seismic reflection data

Regional and high-resolution seismic reflection data across the Kapuskasing structural zone in Ontario, Canada, image at least three significant thrust faults that are low angle, merge into a flat detachment on the west, and together were responsible for the uplift of amphibolite and granulite facies rocks. Their geometry resembles a ramp-and-flat style of deformation that results in a thin upper plate above the 10-12 km (about 4.0 s) detachment. Northwest-southeast horizontal shortening is estimated to be at least 55 km. This large amount of shortening implies that much of the Superior province was detached during the formation of the Kapuskasing structural zone.