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Pat stresses the importance of diversifying your skills: " seismic does NOT answer all
the questions, all the time...there are MANY seismic failures (e.g., one current Marathon
project). The main reason G&M does not see more use is true "ignorance". My job is 10-
100 times harder when my "clients" (the exploration groups...I'm in a service group)
know nothing about G&M. Please stress geophysical integration to your students. It is
the smart way to explore, but you don't just throw G&M at everything...don't bother if the
geology isn't conducive to geophysical results."
x $106 %
Petroleum Exploration
seismic 802 89.7
surface grav/mag 17 1.9
airborne mag 6 0.7
Mineral Exploration
airborne mag 19 2.1
ground mag 12 1.5
Other 34 3.8
Total 894 100
Some examples:
Some examples:
1. The planets move in elliptical orbits with the sun at one focus
where a (distance CA below) and b (distance CB below) are the major and
minor semiaxes. The eccentricity, e, is given by c/a, where c is the
distance from the center of the ellipse to one of the foci, and x and y
represent coordinates of points on orbit. (examples: Earth = 0.01673;
Mercury = 0.2056; Pluto = 0.250)
1. A line drawn from the sun to a planet will sweep out equal areas in equal
times (conservation of angular momentum)
Bulk density:
•
•
• But how was the Newton defined? Improvement in accuracy of G (and
hence mass of Earth) over time:
Gravity as Geophysical Tool
• Kater, 1818, reversible pendulum: absolute g
• Earliest efforts to locate oil-bearing structures involved gravity: just before
1900, Baron Roland von Eötvös, Hungary
o torsion, or Eötvös balance
o measures distortion in g field from buried bodies
o slow, cumbersome to operate
• 1915/16 torsion balance survey at 1-well oil field at Egbell, now in
Czechoslovakia; highly successful
• 1917 Schweider: salt dome in Germany
• 1922 Shell: Horgada field in Egypt
• 1922 Spindletop field in Texas - salt structure
• Vening Meinesz, 1928, shipborne pendulum
• 1930s - Gulf Research & Development, 1st gravimeter (direct readings of
g differences; oil boom, LaCoste-Romberg, Worden meters patented
Potential Fields
Fields
A field is a set of functions of space and time.
A vector field can be described in terms of field lines (or lines of flow, or lines of
force or flux lines). These are lines that are tangent at every point to the vector
field.
Potential Theory
Concept of potential
Example: Consider map of ski area: put arrows everywhere giving magnitude
and direction of slope; It is easier just to give elevation at each point!
In 1-D
In 3-D:
Another example: temperature field (scalar), heat flow field (vector), where
Conservative Fields
For force fields (vector fields) it can be shown that if the force field is
conservative, it may be (and must be) represented as the gradient of a scalar
field.
Conservative:
Since this force depends on the mass of the body, we can divide both sides by
the mass of the test body (equivalent to using a test mass of 1 unit mass):
Is gravity conservative?
Potential as Work
Usually define potential as work required to bring unit mass from infinity to
distance r from infinitesimal mass causing the potential:
Defined this way, potential is positive, and tends to zero as r goes to infinity (as
we get an infinite distance from the mass). [Note from Parasnis, 5th Ed., p. 60:
"This is the same definition as that adopted by Kellogg (1953) in his classic
book on potential theory and (implicitly) by Jeffries (1976), among others.
As defined in this manner, V has the units of [m2s-2] and represents the
work done by the field per kilogram of a point mass m0 when m0 moves
from infinity to a distance r from m."]
Note on signs: defined this way, g will be negative, because it points in the
opposite direction of the unit radial vector. For this reason, you sometimes see g
defined as the positive gradient of potential, so that g (and |g|) will be a positive
number, for convenience.
Example: For incompressible fluid, flux is zero (no place for fluid to go), so
Siméon Denis Poisson, 1781 - 1840. Poisson's most important works were a
series of papers on definite integrals and his advances in Fourier series. This
work was the foundation of later work in this area by Dirichlet and Riemann.
For gravity,
If M is outside the volume, total solid angle is 0 (2 ways to look at this: the
surface presents just as much of its front as its back, so they cancel, or notice
that the flux lines which go in one side of the volume bounded by the surface
come out the other side, so the net flux is zero), so
Note that Laplace's equation is just the special case of Poisson's equation where
density is zero.
Applications of Poisson's Equation in Integral Form
• Multiply through by :
• Last term on LHS depends only on λ, yet first two do not depend
on λ, so last term must be constant (and first two must add up to
negative of that constant).
• Multiply through by :
• Finally,
More than you'd ever care to know about the GEM-T2 model...
Measuring Gravity
Absolute Measurements
• Why?
o ballistics, defense
o tectonic studies (e.g., glacial rebound)
o mass of Earth
o tying relative measurements together
• more difficult to achieve high precision than relative
• pendulum would work, but can't determine pendulum constant
accurately enough
• therefore, use free-fall method
o photograph finely-etched meter stick illuminated by short-
period, high-intensity flashes at precisely controlled time
intervals (~1 mgal)
o track time of fall of corner-cube reflector with laser
interferometer
o commercial instrument now available (see paper, Carter et al.,
EOS)
o See alsohttp://cires.colorado.edu/~bilham/GravFac.html
o Iodine Stabilized Helium-Neon Laser
Measuring Gravity
Relative instruments
• pendulum measurements (still used at
sea)
for point mass on massless string,
where I is moment of inertia about point of suspension; h is distance from
point of suspension to center of mass. But, since K doesn't vary, can
measure change in g:
o Used by Gulf R&D in 1930s; 1-second period (how long),
thermostat, vacuum
o used in late 50s, early 60s by George Woolard at airports, seaports,
large cities, to establish worldwide gravity network
mass on spring
• solving for g:
• "microgal" meter
• manual levelling
• automatic reading
• automatic long-term drift correction
• automatic tide correction
• stores data
•
• typically desire survey accurate to 0.1 mgal (100 µgals);
• g ~ 980,000,000 microgals!
• to resolve anomalies, must adjust observations for several effects
Our Meters
History of the LaCoste & Romberg Meters
Dr. Arnold Romberg (1882-1974)
[photo courtesy David Dillon, Jr.]
http://www.lacosteromberg.com/meterhistory.htm
Airborne Gravity and Gravity Gradiometry
From the Grav-Mag mailing list:
Those of you who access the CSIRO web site should be wary of comparisons with the US Air Force
Gravity Gradiometer Survey System (GGSS), which we developed here in one of our previous incarnations
as Bell Aerospace. This technology is now more than fifteen years old and was an early exposure to using a
gravity gradiometer in an airborne environment. Since those initial flights in a C130 Hercules, much
experience has been gained operating different instruments in a variety of environments, which has resulted
in improved performance. In addition BHP and Bell Geospace have developed or improved upon software
techniques to optimize survey performance for their specific applications. Airborne results from the BHP
Falcon system give a better idea of current capabilities. Although we cannot make any independent
statements about BHP's Falcon gravity gradiometer performance, we believe that the specifications which
can provide a more accurate assessment of current performance can be found on the BHP web site:
http://www.bhp.com/default.asp?page=905
As described there, the Falcon system has been developed to operate in the higher turbulence experienced
at low terrain clearance (80m), thus improving gradient signal amplitude, which decays as the cube of
distance from source. This substantially changes the CSIRO conclusions about the Eotvos sensitivity
needed to identify targets, since they anticipate 300m as a nominal altitude.
The Falcon instrument measures two curvature gradients. To create a full tensor, five gradient, airborne
instrument, the successful full tensor marine system is now being further developed to optimize it for
airborne applications. Lockheed Martin is currently inviting enquiries from organizations who would be
interested in participating in flight trials of such a system.
Andy Grierson
Data Acquisition, Reduction of Gravity Data
Establishing base stations
• tie to IGSN71 or other absolute reading if possible; below are some OK
stations; click to see values:
Determining Elevations
• same as elevation
• digitizer handy for getting latitudes
Drift Correction
Latitude correction
• The IGF value is subtracted from observed (absolute) gravity data. This
corrects for the variation of gravity with latitude
Free-air correction
• "flag-pole" correction
• accounts for decrease in g(r) due to change (increase) in elevation (r)
• does not take in into account mass which may be elevating you
• could pick datum (e.g., sea level), compute "exact" difference, but over
small changes in elevation, h, change is nearly linear
•
• note that, once IGF is removed, we take elevations relative to sea level,
not center of Earth!
Taylor Series
• "bulldozer" correction
• accounts for mass (rock) responsible for elevation change (between
observation point and sea level, usually)
• depends on density of material holding you up (Bouguer density)
• gravity due to infinite slab, thickness h (m), density ρ (g/cm3):
2. Direct measurement
3. Geologic map to get rock type; get values from tables, graphs, etc.
5. Logs
• data pairs: x1, y1; x2, y2;...xn, yn, where n is the total number of data points
• straight line: y = mx + b, where m is the slope, b the intercept
• minimize the sum of the squares of the residuals (SSR):
• these two equations are used to solve for unknowns, m and b. For
homework, show that:
• density may correlate with elevation; e.g., Arbuckles: limestones are hill-
formers, shales are valley-formers...
Bouguer correction at sea, underground
• surface survey
• underground survey
• if velocity is V, E component is
Terrain correction
• latitude and free-air correction virtually always made, giving the Free-Air
Anomaly (FAA)
• note that, once ρ is chosen, FAC and BC can be combined into one
correction: the elevation correction
Suppose you want to find the mass of a homogeneous planet of density ρ and
radius R. You know the volume of a sphere, and that the mass would be the
volume time the density, so you have:
Now, you know that you can never determine neither the density nor the radius
exactly, so you'd like to know how much error there would be the mass
calculation if you make a (small) error in the density of radius.
Let's start with density. What we're really asking is, "how much of a change will
there be in mass if we have a small (technically, infinitessimal) change in density.
This should ring a bell from some math class you took. The quantity
represents the (infinitessimal) change in mass due to a (infinitessimal) change in
density, with R constant. Performing the derivative, we get
This first equation will have the units of mass/density (which happens to be
volume). So if we know density to an accuracy of 100 kg/m3, and the radius of
the planet is 6371 km,
and our error in mass turns out to be that amount. (For reference, the bulk
density of the Earth is about 5500 kg/m3, and the mass is about .
The error of 100 kg/m3 is about 1 part in 55, then, and so the mass is off by
about the same ratio.)
Now let's deal with an error in radius. Again, we want to know the expected
change in mass for a small change in radius, so
Notice that the error in M due to an error in R now depends on R! In other words,
if we make an error of 1 km for a big planet, the error in mass will be much
greater than for a small planet. (Physically, you can picture the shell of additional
material 1 km thick; its surface area will vary as R squared.)
Now, you might say, "if we don't know R precisely, how do we know what R to
use in the formula?" And the answer is, you don't, but you can still estimate the
error, even though you won't know the amount of error exactly!
Anomaly Separation and Filtering
• applies to gravity and magnetics!
• gravity and magnetic fields are each the sum of many anomalies
• core, mantle, relief on Moho, deep crustal density anomalies, all produce
long-wavelength anomalies
• short-wavelength effect of shallow crustal bodies may overlap
• N.B.:
o deep bodies produce only long wavelengths; shallow bodies can
produce long or short wavelengths!
o shortest wavelength that can be produced at given depth is due to
point mass (or spherically symmetric mass)
• in exploration surveys, usually interested in shallow features
• removal of long-wavelength anomalies (usually due to deep sources)
enhances short-wavelength (i.e., necessarily shallow) features
• mustn't "throw out baby with bath water"
Profile
Contour Map
o 3 equations
o 3 unknowns (a, b, c)
• second-order polynomial in x and y
Cubic Spline
Minimum curvature
• find surface with least curvature that fits points withing a certain tolerance
• requires odd number of grid points
• Briggs, Ian C., 1974, Machine contouring using minimum curvature.
Geophysics, v. 39, pp. 39-47.
• works well with profile data
• works well with digitized contour data
Smoothing by averaging
Running or moving average
Weighted averaging
Vertical Derivatives
• often take first or second vertical derivative of field
• enhances short wavelength anomalies relative to long wavelength
anomalies (?-pass filter)
• note, for modelling purposes, that result does not have units of g
• tends to delineate edges of anomalous body
• the first backward, first forward, and second central differences are
• similarly
• so for the second vertical derivative (assume ∆x = ∆y)
Upward Continuation
• Stokes's Theorem: If gravity values are known everywhere on
Earth's surface, gravity at any higher point can be calculated from
these values
• knowing field at one elevation, can compute what field would look like at a
higher elevation (upward continuation) or lower elevation (downward
continuation
• this amounts to 1/r3 weighted averaging
• downward continuation enhances near-surface bodies more than deeper
bodies, hence lessens effect of regional
• consider effect on bodies at different depths, d1 and d2
original photo
cropped
resized
Lanczos filter resampling
Low-Pass Filtering
Bandpass Filtering
• test
• test low
• test high
• sara (key clicks)
[Note: The 2π terms above may be absent in some texts, depending on whether
the Fourier transform has 1/(2π) term]
Directional Derivatives
•
•
Constraining Interpretations
• not hopeless: gravity eliminates even "more infinite" number of density
distributions
• combine gravity data with other constraints:
o density of crustal rocks, particularly in local area
o configuration of rocks: well data, regional geology, etc.
o other geophysics: magnetics, seismic, etc.
Interpretation approaches
Direct Interpretation: Inverse method
Vertical g
• gravity of Earth >> any anomaly
• gravity defines vertical
• therefore gravity meters only measure vertical component:
Gravity due to simple bodies
• easiest, most versatile approach to survey planning, interpretation
• even complex structures produce anomalies similar to simple shapes; for
example, horizontal circular cylinder versus square cylinder:
Infinite Slab
vertical component:
Since, , we get
Where is g 1/2 of maximum?
"Inversion"
technique
1. find distance (x1/2) from peak of anomaly where anomaly is half maximum
anomaly:
2. depth of body:
3. since
Notes
• non-uniqueness:
Example:
Note that finite cylinder formula can be derived by superposition of two semi-
infinite cylinders
Narrow Vertical Cylinder
• while no simple expression exists for gravity off-axis of a thick cylinder, for
thin cylinder an approximate solution exists
• good for z > 2a
semi-infinite case
• depth criterion:
• use superposition:
Semi-infinite Horizontal Slab
• for a line,
• so for a sheet,
• Note that
• Depth criterion
thin finite sheet
Computing depth:
The vertical gravity component due to a line element of mass σ per unit length is:
General 3D Bodies
GRVMAG message from Manik Talwani re: his 3D G&M inversion program
(5/10/2001)
• Bhattacharyya, B. K., Navolio, M. E., 1976, A Fast Fourier Transform
method for rapid computation of gravity and magnetic anomalies due to
arbitrary bodies: Geophys. Prosp., 24, 633-649.
• Gerard, A., Debeglia, N., 1975, Automatic three-dimensional modeling for
the interpretation of gravity or magnetic anomalies: Geophysics, 40 (6),
1014-1034.
• Talwani, M., Ewing, M., 1960, Rapid computation of gravitational attraction
of three-dimensional bodies of arbitrary shape: Geophysics, 25 (1), 203-
225.
• Okabe, M. 1979, Analytic expressions for gravity anomalies due to
homogeneous polyhedral bodies and translations into magnetic
anomalies. Geophysics v44, p730-744.
Interpretation Examples
• Infinite Slab: Bedrock depths, Reading, Mass.
• Subsurface voids, Medford Caves, Florida and without vertical
exaggeration
• Valley geometry, Pine Valley, central Nevada
o location, Bouguer gravity map
o
o gravity, geologic profiles
o
o horizontal cylinder model
o
o double-cylinder model
o
o 2-D polygon model