An airborne electromagnetic system with a three-component transmitter and three-component receiver capable of detecting extremely conductive bodies

Abstract

Extremely conductive bodies, such as those containing valuable nickel sulfides, have a secondary response that is dominated by an in-phase component, so this secondary response is very difficult to distinguish from the primary field emanating from the transmitter (because by definition they are identical in temporal shape and phase). Hence, an airborne electromagnetic (AEM) system able to identify the response from the extremely conductive bodies in the ground must be able to predict the primary field to identify and measure the secondary response of the extremely conductive body. This is normally done by having a rigid system and bucking out the predicted primary (which will not change significantly due to the rigidity). Unfortunately, these rigid systems must be small and are not capable of detecting extremely conductive bodies buried deeper than approximately 100 m. Another approach is to measure the transmitter current and geometry and subtract the primary mathematically, but these measurements must be extremely accurate and this is difficult or expensive, so it has not been done successfully for an AEM system. I exploit the geometric relationship of the primary fields from a three-component (3C) dipole transmitter. If the transmitter is mathematically rotated so that one axis points to the receiver, then linear combinations of the fields measured by a 3C receiver can be combined in such a way that the primary fields from the transmitter sum to zero and cancel. Alternatively, the measured transmitter current and response could be used to estimate the transmitter-receiver geometry and then to predict and remove the primary field. Any residual must be the secondary coming from a conductive body in the ground. Hence, extremely conductive bodies containing valuable minerals can be found. An AEM system with a 3C transmitter and a 3C receiver should not be too difficult to build.