Inductive source induced polarization

Abstract

Induced polarization (IP) surveys are commonly performed to map the distribution of electrical chargeability that is a diagnostic physical property in mineral exploration and in many environmental problems. Although these surveys have been successful in the past, the galvanic sources required for traditional IP and magnetic IP (MIP) surveys prevent them from being applied in some geological settings. We develop a new methodology for processing frequency domain EM data to identify the presence of IP effects in observations of the magnetic fields arising from an inductive source. The method makes use of the asymptotic behaviour of the secondary magnetic fields at lowfrequency. Anewquantity, referred to as the ISIP datum, is defined so that it equals zero at low frequencies for any frequency-independent (non-chargeable) conductivity distribution. Thus, any non-zero response in the ISIP data indicates the presence of chargeable material. Numerical simulations demonstrate that the method can be applied even in complicated geological situations. A 3-D inversion algorithm is developed to recover the chargeability from the ISIP data and the inversion is demonstrated on synthetic examples. © The Authors 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal Astronomical Society.