Geomagnetic induction in multiple eccentrically nested spheres

Abstract

We present a semi-analytic solution to the 3-D forward modelling of electromagnetic induction in a heterogeneous model consisting of multiple eccentrically nested spheres. A number of numerical methods for 2-D and 3-D global electromagnetic modelling have been applied recently, including thin-sheet, perturbation-expansion, finite-element and spectral-finite-element schemes. The present semi-analytical approach may be used as an aid for testing more general algorithms of electromagnetic induction modelling. The multiple eccentrically nested spheres solution has been tested by comparing against the analytical solution for electromagnetic induction in a uniform sphere and in two eccentrically nested spheres with an azimuthal structure of electrical conductivity, and good agreements have been obtained. We further solve the electromagnetic induction problem in three and four eccentrically nested spheres configurations and compute the global response function and the spherical components of magnetic intensity within the model.