Outline

Uses of Gravity and Magnetic exploration

Concept of Potential Field

Key equations and theorems

Laplace and Poissons equations

Gauss theorem

Basic solutions

Conservative
Curl-free (irrotational)

Point source and sphere

Solid sphere
Line source
Inertial (centrifugal) force and potential
Characteristic widths of anomalies

Gravity and magnetic modeling

Ranges and errors of values
Error analysis: Variance and Standard deviation

Why doing Gravity and Magnetic

prospecting?

Specific physical properties

Density, total mass, magnetization, shape (important

for mining)
Basin shape (for oil/gas)

Signal at a hierarchical range of spatial scales

(called Integrated in the notes)
At a single point, the effects of large (regional) as
well as small (local) structures recorded
Thus, zero-frequency is present in the data (unlike
in seismology)
This allows reconnaissance of large areas by using
wide station spacing

Inexpensive (practical with 1-3 person crews)

Why doing not only Gravity and Magnetic

prospecting?

Much poorer spatial resolution compared to

seismology
w1/ 2 h 0.65
Resolution quickly decreases with depth

The horizontal size of an anomaly is approx.

This is about the distance at which the anomalies
can be separated laterally

Uncertainty of depth estimates

For example, we will see that the source of any

gravity anomaly can in principle be located right
at the observation surface

Potential

Potential (gravity, magnetic) scalar field U such that the

vector field strength (g) represents its negative gradient:

r
U
g U
x
so that the work of g along any contour C connecting x1
and x2 is only determined by the end points:

gdx U x U x
1

Potential

Note that this means that g is curl-free (curl of a

gradient is always zero):

curl g g 0

If the divergence of g is also zero (no sources or

sinks), we have the Laplace equation:

div g g 0

2U 0

Conservative (irrotational, curl-free) fields

For a field with zero curl:

g 0
always exists a potential:

, there

U x U x 0 gdx
C

By Stokes theorem, the

contour integral between x0
and x does not depend on the
shape of the contour (integral
over the loop x0 x x0
equals zero)

Such fields are called conservative (conserving

the energy)

Conservative fields

g 0
Thus, a field with
can always be
presented as a gradient of a scalar potential:
r
U
g U
x

Source

In the presence of a source (mass density for

gravity), the last two equations become:

div g g 4 G
2U 4 G

Poissons
equation

The goal of potential-field methods is to determine the source ( )

by using readings of g at different directions at a distance

Gauss theorem

From the divergence theorem, the flux of g through

a closed surface equals the volume integral of divg
Therefore (Gausss theorem for gravity):

g nds 4 G

closed surface

Total
outward
flux of g

dV 4 GM

volume

Total
mass

Basic solutions: point source or sphere

Gravity of a point source or sphere:

M
M
g G 2 r G 3 r
r
r

M
U G
r

Gravity within a uniform Earth

r R
:

M 2
Mr
M
r const
g G 3 r G 3 r U G
3
2R
R
R
const
needed to
tie with
U(r) above

Gravity within a hollow spherical cavity in a uniform space ?

Basic solutions: line (pipe, cylinder) source

Consider a uniform thin rod of linear mass density

Enclose a portion of this rod of length L in a closed
cylinder of radius r
The flux of gravity through the cylinder:

g 2 rL 4 G L

Therefore, the gravity at distance r from a line source:

g r

2G
r
2G 2
r
r

Note that it decreases as 1/r

This was copied from Lecture #9

Basic solutions:
Gravity above a thin sheet

Consider a uniform thin sheet of surface mass density

Enclose a portion of the thin sheet of area A in a closed
surface
From the equations for divergence of the gravity field:

div g 4 G

The total flux through the

4 G A
surface
equals:
By symmetry, the fluxes through
the lower and upper surfaces are
gA
equal. Each of them also equals:

Therefore, the gravity above a thin sheet is:

g 2 G
This was copied from Lecture #9

Basic solutions: centrifugal force

Centrifugal force:

Field strength:

g c 2 r sin

Potential:

1 2
2
U c r sin const
2

is the colatitude.
The force is directed
away from the axis of
rotation
The potential is similarly
cylindricallysymmetric and
decreases away from
the axis of rotation

Widths of anomalies

The depths h to the sources of anomalies are often

estimated from the widths of the anomalies at halfh
peak magnitude, w1/2:
w

For a spherical anomaly:

For a cylindrical anomaly:

12

0.65

w1 2 2h

h 0.65w1 2

h 0.5w1 2

This is also discussed in Lecture #12

Variance

The variance (denoted 2) is the squared mean

statistical error
If we have an infinite number of measurements of g,
each occurring with probability density p(g), then the
variance is the mean squared deviation from the mean:

g g

p g dg

g gp g dg

where the mean is defined

by:

p g dg 1

(Also note that:

Standard deviation

We always have a finite number of measurements,

and so need to estimate <g> and 2 from them
For N measurements, these estimates are:
1
g gN
N

2 sN2 1

g
i 1

Arithmetic mean,
or sample mean

1 N
2
sN-1 is the standard

i
N
N 1 i 1
sN2 deviation,
1

is called sample
variance
absolute
error from N

Thus, the expected mean

measurements is the standard deviation:
sN 1

1 N
2
gi g N

N 1 i 1

Another estimate of scatter in the data

Sometimes you would estimate the scatter in the data by

averaging the squared differences of consecutive observations:
N 1

%
sN 1

g
j 1

j 1

gj

N 1

This is used in
lecture and lab
notes

Note that N-1 here is the number of repeated

measurements
This is an approximate standard deviation of the drift
This formulas is OK to use with drift-corrected data