Migration transformation of two-dimensional magnetic vector and tensor fields

Abstract

We introduce a new method of rapid interpretation of magnetic vector and tensor field data, based on ideas of potential field migration which extends the general principles of seismic and electromagnetic migration to potential fields. 2-D potential field migration represents a direct integral transformation of the observed magnetic fields into a subsurface susceptibility distribution, which can be used for interpretation or as an a priori model for subsequent regularized inversion. Potential field migration is very stable with respect to noise in the observed data because the transform is reduced to the downward continuation of a well-behaved analytical function. We present case studies for imaging of SQUID-based magnetic tensor data acquired over a magnetite skarn at Tallawang, Australia. The results obtained from magnetic tensor field migration agree very well with both Euler deconvolution and the known geology. © 2012 The Authors Geophysical Journal International © 2012 RAS.