Transient electromagnetic modeling of shallow A‐type sections with 3-D inhomogeneities

Geophysics ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 57 (6) ◽  
pp. 774-780 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Poddar ◽  
Walter L. Anderson

A hard rock area underlain by granitic/gneissic or basaltic rocks often has an A‐type three‐layer geoelectric section in which resistivity increases with depth. The middle layer of moderate resistivity caused by fracturing/fissuring that lies between the surface‐weathered layer and the substratum of unfractured rock is not a good target for a direct current (DC) resistivity sounding since it is generally suppressed in the observations. Moreover, its definition requires expanding the electrode spacing to a length several times the depth of the target layer, and this may be a drawback if the target layer is either laterally variable or limited in its horizontal extent. We first studied the transient electric field of a horizontal electric dipole (HED) source excited by a step turn‐off current for a 1-D model of an A‐type geoelectric section. The results of this theoretical study are presented as graphs of normalized apparent resistivity versus a time‐related dimensionless parameter. Irrespective of the separation between the transmitter and receiver dipoles, these transient sounding curves become similar to the corresponding Schlumberger sounding curves at late time. Hence the transient electric field measurement offers the possibility of sounding at a fixed transmitter‐receiver spacing that may be shorter than the target depth. Also, at early times, for a certain ratio of the dipole separation to the target depth, there is a dramatic increase in the resolution of the response. Thus, it is possible to resolve suppressed layers of an A‐type section in this type of sounding. A study of the effects of transmitter ramp time and receiver bandwidth on the transient apparent resistivity curves shows that a very fast current shut‐off and wideband measurement are required to realize all the possibilities suggested by this modeling. Some 3-D transient electromagnetic (TEM) modeling was also done to simulate (1) a lateral variation in the resistivity of the middle layer of an A‐type section and (2) a weak zone of limited horizontal extent in the substratum of a two‐layer section. We observed that the 3-D inclusion has less effect at late time but is more pronounced at early time. In view of the above results, we conclude that the transient E‐field sounding with a grounded wire source can be used in place of a conventional DC resistivity sounding to overcome the problem of poor resolution due to the suppression of the intermediate layer in a geoelectric section where the resistivity increases with depth. As such, it has a potential application in groundwater as well as geotechnical surveys, because together with the overlying weathered layer, the fractured rock constitutes the aquifer in hard rocks.

Geophysics ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 51 (7) ◽  
pp. 1462-1471 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian R. Spies ◽  
Dwight E. Eggers

Problems and misunderstandings arise with the concept of apparent resistivity when the analogy between an apparent resistivity computed from geophysical observations and the true resistivity structure of the subsurface is drawn too tightly. Several definitions of apparent resistivity are available for use in electromagnetic methods; however, those most commonly used do not always exhibit the best behavior. Many of the features of the apparent resistivity curve which have been interpreted as physically significant with one definition disappear when alternative definitions are used. It is misleading to compare the detection or resolution capabilities of different field systems or configurations solely on the basis of the apparent resistivity curve. For the in‐loop transient electromagnetic (TEM) method, apparent resistivity computed from the magnetic field response displays much better behavior than that computed from the induced voltage response. A comparison of “exact” and “asymptotic” formulas for the TEM method reveals that automated schemes for distinguishing early‐time and late‐time branches are at best tenuous, and those schemes are doomed to failure for a certain class of resistivity structures (e.g., the loop size is large compared to the layer thickness). For the magnetotelluric (MT) method, apparent resistivity curves defined from the real part of the impedance exhibit much better behavior than curves based on the conventional definition that uses the magnitude of the impedance. Results of using this new definition have characteristics similar to apparent resistivity obtained from time‐domain processing.


Geophysics ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 51 (6) ◽  
pp. 1291-1297 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yang Sheng

Early‐time and late‐time apparent resistivity approximations have been widely used for interpretation of long‐offset transient electromagnetic (LOTEM) measurements because it is difficult to find a single apparent resistivity over the whole time range. From a physical point of view, Dr. C. H. Stoyer defined an apparent resistivity for the whole time range. However, there are two problems which hinder its use: one is that there is no explicit formula to calculate the apparent resistivity, and the other is that the apparent resistivity has no single solution. A careful study of the two problems shows that a numerical method can be used to calculate a single apparent resistivity. A formula for the maximum receiver voltage over a uniform earth, when compared with the receiver voltage for a layered earth, leads to the conclusion that, in some cases, a layered earth can produce a larger voltage than any uniform earth can produce. Therefore, our apparent resistivity definition cannot be applied to those cases. In some other cases, the two possible solutions from our definition do not merge, so that neither of them is meaningful for the whole time range.


Geophysics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 82 (4) ◽  
pp. E211-E220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrei Swidinsky ◽  
Chester J. Weiss

Coincident loop transient induction wireline logging is examined as the borehole analog of the well-known land and airborne time-domain electromagnetic (EM) method. The concept of whole-space late-time apparent resistivity is modified from the half-space version commonly used in land and airborne geophysics and applied to the coincident loop voltages produced from various formation, borehole, and invasion models. Given typical tool diameters, off-time measurements with such an instrument must be made on the order of nanoseconds to microseconds — much more rapidly than for surface methods. Departure curves of the apparent resistivity for thin beds, calculated using an algorithm developed to model the transient response of a loop in a multilayered earth, indicate that the depth of investigation scales with the bed thickness. Modeled resistivity logs are comparable in accuracy and resolution with standard frequency-domain focused induction logs. However, if measurement times are longer than a few microseconds, the thicknesses of conductors can be overestimated, whereas resistors are underestimated. Thin-bed resolution characteristics are explained by visualizing snapshots of the EM fields in the formation, where a conductor traps the electric field while two current maxima are produced in the shoulder beds surrounding a resistor. Radial profiling is studied using a concentric cylinder earth model. Results found that true formation resistivity can be determined in the presence of either oil- or water-based mud, although in the latter case, measurements must be taken several orders of magnitude later in time. The ability to determine true formation resistivity is governed by the degree that the EM field heals after being distorted by borehole fluid and invasion, a process visualized and particularly evident in the case of conductive water-based mud.


Geophysics ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. F25-F34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benoit Tournerie ◽  
Michel Chouteau ◽  
Denis Marcotte

We present and test a new method to correct for the static shift affecting magnetotelluric (MT) apparent resistivity sounding curves. We use geostatistical analysis of apparent resistivity and phase data for selected periods. For each period, we first estimate and model the experimental variograms and cross variogram between phase and apparent resistivity. We then use the geostatistical model to estimate, by cokriging, the corrected apparent resistivities using the measured phases and apparent resistivities. The static shift factor is obtained as the difference between the logarithm of the corrected and measured apparent resistivities. We retain as final static shift estimates the ones for the period displaying the best correlation with the estimates at all periods. We present a 3D synthetic case study showing that the static shift is retrieved quite precisely when the static shift factors are uniformly distributed around zero. If the static shift distribution has a nonzero mean, we obtained best results when an apparent resistivity data subset can be identified a priori as unaffected by static shift and cokriging is done using only this subset. The method has been successfully tested on the synthetic COPROD-2S2 2D MT data set and on a 3D-survey data set from Las Cañadas Caldera (Tenerife, Canary Islands) severely affected by static shift.


1983 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. N. Ballukraya ◽  
R. Sakthivadivel ◽  
R. Baratan

In a previous paper (Nordic Hydrology, Vol. 12, 1981), the authors have discussed the inadequacies in the technique of resistivity method for location of sites for constructing deep water walls in hard rock areas. It was pointed out that the water bearing fracture zones in the bed rock could not be identified by merely considering geoelectrical parameters such as layer resistivity. An empirical study based on the correlation of minor irregularities or deviations – “BREAKS” – in the normally smooth sounding curves with the actual driller's logs reveals that under normal geo-electric conditions these water bearing zones (hard rock aquifers) are indicated in the curve by a perceptible lowering of apparent resistivity and hence could be used as a guide for locating well sites. As such breaks may also be caused by other conditions such as lateral inhomogeneities, certain methods for distinguishing them are discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 224 (1) ◽  
pp. 669-681
Author(s):  
Sihong Wu ◽  
Qinghua Huang ◽  
Li Zhao

SUMMARY Late-time transient electromagnetic (TEM) data contain deep subsurface information and are important for resolving deeper electrical structures. However, due to their relatively small signal amplitudes, TEM responses later in time are often dominated by ambient noises. Therefore, noise removal is critical to the application of TEM data in imaging electrical structures at depth. De-noising techniques for TEM data have been developed rapidly in recent years. Although strong efforts have been made to improving the quality of the TEM responses, it is still a challenge to effectively extract the signals due to unpredictable and irregular noises. In this study, we develop a new type of neural network architecture by combining the long short-term memory (LSTM) network with the autoencoder structure to suppress noise in TEM signals. The resulting LSTM-autoencoders yield excellent performance on synthetic data sets including horizontal components of the electric field and vertical component of the magnetic field generated by different sources such as dipole, loop and grounded line sources. The relative errors between the de-noised data sets and the corresponding noise-free transients are below 1% for most of the sampling points. Notable improvement in the resistivity structure inversion result is achieved using the TEM data de-noised by the LSTM-autoencoder in comparison with several widely-used neural networks, especially for later-arriving signals that are important for constraining deeper structures. We demonstrate the effectiveness and general applicability of the LSTM-autoencoder by de-noising experiments using synthetic 1-D and 3-D TEM signals as well as field data sets. The field data from a fixed loop survey using multiple receivers are greatly improved after de-noising by the LSTM-autoencoder, resulting in more consistent inversion models with significantly increased exploration depth. The LSTM-autoencoder is capable of enhancing the quality of the TEM signals at later times, which enables us to better resolve deeper electrical structures.


Geophysics ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 49 (12) ◽  
pp. 2143-2158 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert L. Parker

The electric potential due to a single point electrode at the surface of a layered conducting medium is calculated by means of a linear combination of the potentials associated with a set of two‐layer systems. This new representation is called the bilayer expansion for the Green’s function. It enables the forward problem of resistivity sounding to be solved very efficiently, even for complicated profiles. Also, the bilayer expansion facilitates the solution of the resistivity inverse problem: the coefficients in the expansion are linearly related to apparent resistivity as it is measured and they are readily mapped into parameters for a model. Specifically, I consider models comprising uniformly conducting layers of equal thickness; for a given finite data set a quadratic program can be used to find the best‐fitting model in this class for any specified thickness. As the thickness is reduced, models of this kind can approximate arbitrary profiles with unlimited accuracy. If there is a model that satisfies the data well, there are other models equally good or better whose variation takes place in an infinitesimally thin zone near the surface, below which there is a perfectly conducting region. This extraordinary class of solutions underscores the serious ambiguity in the interpretation of apparent resistivity data. It is evident that strong constraints from outside the electrical data set must be applied if reliable solutions are to be discovered. Previous work seems to have given a somewhat overly optimistic impression of the resolving abilities of this kind of data. I consider briefly a regularization technique designed to maximize the smoothness of models found with the bilayer inversion.


2014 ◽  
Vol 1073-1076 ◽  
pp. 2153-2157
Author(s):  
Yong Jun Li ◽  
Xiao Ming Li ◽  
Ting Chen

Transient electromagnetic method is one of the geophysical prospecting methods to detect mine goaf. The paper analyzes the unique electrical characteristics of the stratum containing goaf. TEM inverts the apparent resistivity and delineates the mine goaf and determines water content by observing the pure secondary field. The method is sensitive to geologic bodies of low resistivity and has higher resolution. The paper takes some one mine in Shanxi as example to prove the practicability and effectiveness of TEM in production. It has certain reference significance in detecting mine goaf.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 67
Author(s):  
Nwosu Jacinta Chiemela ◽  
Leonard I Nwosu ◽  
Godwin O Chukwu

A Vertical Electrical resistivity Sounding (VES) survey was carried out, to study the groundwater supply potential, protective capacity and soil corrosivity of aquifers in Ikeduru Local Government Area of Imo state, Nigeria. A total of ten (10) geoelectric soundings were acquired. Schlumberger electrode configuration was used in acquiring the data. Six to seven geoelectric layers were delineated from the interpreted results, the Aquifers were delineated between the fifth and sixth geoelectric layers, having an apparent resistivity above 1000Ωm, with the highest thick of 69.0m at a depth of 144.0m. Longitudinal Conductance, Hydraulic Conductivity, Transmissivity and Product Conductance range are as followings for the aquifers; 1.720 – 127.000 x 10-3Ω-1, 15.90 – 188.79m/day, 1093.3 – 1097.1m2/day and 2.590 – 252.50 x 10-3 respectively. Inferring from our hydraulic parameters, all the aquiferous zones have very high designation, wwithdrawal of great regional importance of groundwater supply potential and practically noncorrosive, soil corrosivity. 40% percentage of the aquiferous units have very good protective capacity, while for excellent and good protective capacity of the study are is 30%. All the VES points are said to be a very viable potential for safe source for groundwater exploration.  


2003 ◽  
Vol 46 (5) ◽  
pp. 998-1010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denghai BAI ◽  
Maxwell A Meju ◽  
Jian LU ◽  
Lifeng WANG ◽  
Zhaohai HE

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