Groundwater applications of towed TEM in diverse geology at farm scale

Abstract

Vehicle towed transient TEM systems have opened up possibilities of comprehensive mapping of groundwater resources at farm scale. At this scale airborne TEM usually has too much setup cost and conventional TEM conducted on foot is usually too laborious and rarely economically viable. Interpretation of data requires understanding of diverse geology, from alluvial geomorphology, volcanogenic deposition, weathering and erosion processes and the often complex combination of these. Further, impacts on the data by fences, buried cables and modelling imperfections must be separated from geological impact. Typically, it is the detail of the survey that renders it interpretable rather than system quality alone.