Comprehensive approaches to 3D inversion of magnetic data affected by remanent magnetization

Geophysics ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
pp. L1-L11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yaoguo Li ◽  
Sarah E. Shearer ◽  
Matthew M. Haney ◽  
Neal Dannemiller

Three-dimensional (3D) inversion of magnetic data to recover a distribution of magnetic susceptibility has been successfully used for mineral exploration during the last decade. However, the unknown direction of magnetization has limited the use of this technique when significant remanence is present. We have developed a comprehensive methodology for solving this problem by examining two classes of approaches and have formulated a suite of methods of practical utility. The first class focuses on estimating total magnetization direction and then incorporating the resultant direction into an inversion algorithm that assumes a known direction. The second class focuses on direct inversion of the amplitude of the magnetic anomaly vector. Amplitude data depend weakly upon magnetization direction and are amenable to direct inversion for the magnitude of magnetization vector in 3D subsurface. Two sets of high-resolution aeromagnetic data acquired for diamond exploration in the Canadian Arctic are used to illustrate the methods’ usefulness.

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Lelièvre ◽  
Dominique Fournier ◽  
Sean Walker ◽  
Nicholas Williams ◽  
Colin Farquharson

<p>Reduction to pole and other transformations of total field magnetic intensity data are often challenging to perform at low magnetic latitudes, when remanence exists, and when large topographic relief exists. Several studies have suggested use of inversion-based equivalent source methods for performing such transformations under those complicating factors. However, there has been little assessment of the importance of erroneous edge effects that occur when fundamental assumptions underlying the transformation procedures are broken. In this work we propose a transformation procedure that utilizes magnetization vector inversion, inversion-based regional field separation, and equivalent source inversion on unstructured meshes. We investigated whether edge effects in transformations could be reduced by performing a regional separation procedure prior to equivalent source inversion. We applied our proposed procedure to the transformation of total field magnetic intensity to magnetic amplitude data, using a complicated synthetic example based on a real geological scenario from mineral exploration. While the procedure performed acceptably on this test example, the results could be improved. We pose many questions regarding the various choices and control parameters used throughout the procedure, but we leave the investigation of those questions to future work.</p>


Geophysics ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. J11-J19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shu-Ling Li ◽  
Yaoguo Li

We study the inversion of magnetic data acquired over a rugged observation surface and where the buried source bodies have strong remanent magnetization that leads to unknown total magnetization directions. These factors pose significant challenges for processing and inversion of such data. To tackle the challenges from both a rugged observation surface and an unknown magnetization direction, we propose a strategy through the joint use of the equivalent source technique and 3D amplitude inversion to obtain 3D magnetization strength. We use equivalent source processing to calculate the amplitude data in the space domain because the use of the wavenumber-domain method is invalid due to large variations in the data elevation. We then carried out an amplitude inversion to generate a 3D subsurface distribution of the magnitude of the total magnetization vector. The results from a synthetic example and aeromagnetic data in Daye Mine in China showed that this approach is effective and images the magnetic units whose contact zones with the limestone country rock host the mineralization. The method is general and can be applied to a variety of cases with similar challenges.


Geophysics ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 78 (6) ◽  
pp. D429-D444 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuang Liu ◽  
Xiangyun Hu ◽  
Tianyou Liu ◽  
Jie Feng ◽  
Wenli Gao ◽  
...  

Remanent magnetization and self-demagnetization change the magnitude and direction of the magnetization vector, which complicates the interpretation of magnetic data. To deal with this problem, we evaluated a method for inverting the distributions of 2D magnetization vector or effective susceptibility using 3C borehole magnetic data. The basis for this method is the fact that 2D magnitude magnetic anomalies are not sensitive to the magnetization direction. We calculated magnitude anomalies from the measured borehole magnetic data in a spatial domain. The vector distributions of magnetization were inverted methodically in two steps. The distributions of magnetization magnitude were initially solved based on magnitude magnetic anomalies using the preconditioned conjugate gradient method. The preconditioner determined by the distances between the cells and the borehole observation points greatly improved the quality of the magnetization magnitude imaging. With the calculated magnetization magnitude, the distributions of magnetization direction were computed by fitting the component anomalies secondly using the conjugate gradient method. The two-step approach made full use of the amplitude and phase anomalies of the borehole magnetic data. We studied the influence of remanence and demagnetization based on the recovered magnetization intensity and direction distributions. Finally, we tested our method using synthetic and real data from scenarios that involved high susceptibility and complicated remanence, and all tests returned favorable results.


Geophysics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 84 (5) ◽  
pp. J57-J67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlon C. Hidalgo-Gato ◽  
Valéria C. F. Barbosa

We have developed a fast 3D regularized magnetic inversion algorithm for depth-to-basement estimation based on an efficient way to compute the total-field anomaly produced by an arbitrary interface separating nonmagnetic sediments from a magnetic basement. We approximate the basement layer by a grid of 3D vertical prisms juxtaposed in the horizontal directions, in which the prisms’ tops represent the depths to the magnetic basement. To compute the total-field anomaly produced by the basement relief, the 3D integral of the total-field anomaly of a prism is simplified by a 1D integral along the prism thickness, which in turn is multiplied by the horizontal area of the prism. The 1D integral is calculated numerically using the Gauss-Legendre quadrature produced by dipoles located along the vertical axis passing through the prism center. This new magnetic forward modeling overcomes one of the main drawbacks of the nonlinear inverse problem for estimating the basement depths from magnetic data: the intense computational cost to calculate the total-field anomaly of prisms. The new sensitivity matrix is simpler and computationally faster than the one using classic magnetic forward modeling based on the 3D integrals of a set of prisms that parameterize the earth’s subsurface. To speed up the inversion at each iteration, we used the Gauss-Newton approximation for the Hessian matrix keeping the main diagonal only and adding the first-order Tikhonov regularization function. The large sparseness of the Hessian matrix allows us to construct and solve a linear system iteratively that is faster and demands less memory than the classic nonlinear inversion with prism-based modeling using 3D integrals. We successfully inverted the total-field anomaly of a simulated smoothing basement relief with a constant magnetization vector. Tests on field data from a portion of the Pará-Maranhão Basin, Brazil, retrieved a first depth-to-basement estimate that was geologically plausible.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (21) ◽  
pp. 7636
Author(s):  
Dandan Jiang ◽  
Zhaofa Zeng ◽  
Shuai Zhou ◽  
Yanwu Guan ◽  
Tao Lin ◽  
...  

Three-dimensional magnetic inversion allows the distribution of magnetic parameters to be obtained, and it is an important tool for geological exploration and interpretation. However, because of the redundancy of the data obtained from large-scale investigations or high-density sampling, it is very computationally intensive to use these data for iterative inversion calculations. In this paper, we propose a method for compressing magnetic data by using an adaptive quadtree decomposition method, which divides the two-dimensional data region into four quadrants and progressively subdivides them by recursion until the data in each quadrant meets the regional consistency criterion. The method allows for dense sampling at the abnormal boundaries with large amplitude changes and sparse sampling at regions with small amplitude changes, and achieves the best approximation to the original data with the least amount of data, thus retaining more anomalous information while achieving the purpose of data compression. In addition, assigning values to the data in the quadrants using the averaging method is essentially equivalent to average filtering, which reduces the noise of the magnetic data. Testing the synthetic model and applying the method to mineral exploration a prove that it can effectively compress the magnetic data and greatly improve the computational efficiency.


Geophysics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 83 (5) ◽  
pp. J75-J84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camriel Coleman ◽  
Yaoguo Li

Three-dimensional inversion plays an important role in the quantitative interpretation of magnetic data in exploration problems, and magnetic amplitude data can be an effective tool in cases in which remanently magnetized materials are present. Because amplitude data are typically calculated from total-field anomaly data, the error levels must be characterized for inversions. Lack of knowledge of the error in amplitude data hinders the ability to properly estimate the data misfit associated with an inverse model and, therefore, the selection of the appropriate regularization parameter for a final model. To overcome these challenges, we have investigated the propagation of errors from total-field anomaly to amplitude data. Using parametric bootstrapping, we find that the standard deviation of the noise in amplitude data is approximately equal to that of the noise in total-field anomaly data when the amplitude data are derived from the conversion of total-field data to three orthogonal components. We then illustrate how the equivalent source method can be used to estimate the error in total-field anomaly data when needed. The obtained noise estimate can be applied to amplitude inversion to recover an optimal inverse model by applying the discrepancy principle. We test this method on synthetic and field data and determine its effectiveness.


Geophysics ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 74 (4) ◽  
pp. L31-L42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emilia Fregoso ◽  
Luis A. Gallardo

We extend the cross-gradient methodology for joint inversion to three-dimensional environments and introduce a solution procedure based on a statistical formulation and equality constraints for structural similarity resemblance. We apply the proposed solution to the joint 3D inversion of gravity and magnetic data and gauge the advantages of this new formulation on test and field-data experiments. Combining singular-value decomposition (SVD) and other conventional regularizing constraints, we determine 3D distributions of the density and magnetization with enhanced structural similarity. The algorithm reduces some misleading features of the models, which are introduced commonly by conventional separate inversions of gravity and magnetic data, and facilitates an integrated interpretation of the models.


Geophysics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 82 (6) ◽  
pp. J83-J97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard A. Krahenbuhl ◽  
Yaoguo Li

We investigate self-demagnetization effects on magnetic data and develop a comparison of two existing inversion methods as they apply to quantitative interpretation of such data in highly magnetic environments. We begin by evaluating the effect on magnetization direction when susceptibility is a scalar and increases from low values into the realm of self-demagnetization. We show through numerical experiments that susceptibility values of greater than 0.1 SI lead to significant self-demagnetization effects. Second, we show that conventional inversion can perform well for interpretation of self-demagnetization problems with simple source geometries. However, as the geometry becomes more complex in realistically complex problems, this approach can produce poor results and a more robust technique is required. Our numerical experiments indicate that directly inverting amplitude data, which can be derived from total-field magnetic anomaly data and are weakly dependent on magnetization direction, produces superior results when interpreting data from areas with complex geology and high magnetic susceptibilities. We conclude by evaluating the application of our preferred approach on a large field data set exhibiting strong self-demagnetization, multiple source bodies, and complex structures.


Geophysics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 84 (5) ◽  
pp. J69-J82 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boxin Zuo ◽  
Xiangyun Hu ◽  
Yi Cai ◽  
Shuang Liu

We have developed a general 3D amplitude inversion algorithm for magnetic data in the presence of self-demagnetization and remanent magnetization. The algorithm uses a nonlinear conjugate gradient (NLCG) scheme to invert the amplitude of the magnetic anomaly vector within a partial differential equation framework. Three quantities— the amplitude of the anomalous magnetic field, the analytic signal, and the normalized source strength, defined as the amplitudes of magnetic data that are weakly dependent on the magnetization direction — are inverted to recover the 3D distribution of the subsurface magnetic susceptibility. Numerical experiments indicate that our NLCG amplitude inversion algorithm has a rapid convergence rate that provides a reasonable inversion solution in the absence of knowing the total magnetization direction. High-resolution aeromagnetic data collected from the Pea Ridge iron oxide-apatite-rare earth element deposit, southeast Missouri, USA, are used to illustrate the efficacy of our amplitude inversion algorithm. This algorithm is generally applicable for tackling the large-scale inversion problem in the presence of self-demagnetization and remanent magnetization.


2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-98
Author(s):  
Yaoguo Li ◽  
Jiajia Sun ◽  
Shu-Ling Li ◽  
Marcelo Leão-Santos

Magnetic data are sensitive to both the induced magnetization in rock units caused by the present earth's magnetic field and the remanent magnetization acquired by rock units in past geologic time. Susceptibility is a direct indicator of the magnetic mineral content, whereas remanent magnetization carries information about the formation process and subsequent structural movement of geologic units. The ability to recover and use total magnetization, defined as the vectorial sum of the induced and remanent magnetization, therefore enables us to take full advantage of magnetic data. The exploration geophysics community has achieved significant advances in inverting magnetic data affected by remanent magnetization. It is now feasible to invert any magnetic data set for total magnetization. We provide an overview of the state of the art in magnetization inversion and demonstrate the informational value of inverted magnetization through a set of case studies from mineral exploration problems. We focus on the methods that recover either the magnitude of the total magnetization or the total magnetization vector itself.


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