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July 18 2012
1. Introduction
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Cerro Gordo MT survey, July 18 2012
Table 1 : Station names , locations and elevations for the Cerro Gordo MT survey.
Figure 1 : Google earth map showing Cerro Gordo MT station layout. Solid circles show MT
stations where electric and magnetic data were recorded. Open circles show MT stations where
only electric fields were recorded.
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Cerro Gordo MT survey, July 18 2012
1463N20 1465N19
1465N20 1463N19
Figure 2 : Apparent resistivity curves, phase curves and induction vectors for the Cerro Gordo
MT stations in geographic co-ordinates. Red curves denotes xy data calculated from electric
field oriented north-south and magnetic field oriented east west. Blue curves denotes yx data
calculated from electric field oriented east-west and magnetic field oriented north-south.
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Cerro Gordo MT survey, July 18 2012
1495N19 1493N19
1493N20 1495N20
Figure 2 : Continued.
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Cerro Gordo MT survey, July 18 2012
Figure 3 : Strike directions computed for Cerro Gordo MT data for frequency band 10 –
0.001 Hz (periods 0.1 – 1000 s) using tensor decomposition. The red and blue lines
indicate the two possible strike directions for each MT station, since there is an inherent
90° ambiguity in this type of analysis. Data show a well-defined strike direction of N45°E
or N135°E. Comparison with regional geology is needed to overcome this ambiguity.
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Cerro Gordo MT survey, July 18 2012
Figure 4: The r.m.s. misfit of the tensor decomposition for the Cerro Gordo MT profile. The low
values of misfit (less than 2) indicated that the assumptions made in tensor decomposition are
valid at the majority of stations and periods.
The results show that there is a well defined strike direction of N45° or N135°E over this period
band. Additional information is needed to determine which if these two directions is the
correct choice. The N45°E direction corresponds well with the regional geology and the
direction of the western edge of the basin east of Cerro Gordo. Therefore N45°E was chosen as
the strike direction. The low values of the r.m.s. misfit tell us that the assumption of a 2-D
resistivity structure is valid. Similar results were obtained using the phase tensor approach of
Caldwell et al., (2006) to study the dimensionality.
Data were then rotated to a N45°E co-ordinate system for all subsequent data analysis. Note
that a profile with direction N135°E was used, with the MT stations projected onto this transect
(Figure 5). The data in the rotated co-ordinate system are shown in Figure 6 in pseudosection
format. Magnetotelluric signals penetrate to greater depths in the Earth as the frequency
decreases. Thus by plotting period on the vertical scale, an impression of the depth variation
can be obtained.
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Cerro Gordo MT survey, July 18 2012
Figure 5 : MT profile that was chosen to be orthogonal to the computed strike direction. The
stations were projected onto this profile for data analysis.
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Cerro Gordo MT survey, July 18 2012
Figure 6 : Pseudo-sections of Cerro Gordo MT data in a N45°E co-ordinate system. (a) TM mode
(b) TE mode and (c) Tipper data. The tipper is the ratio of vertical to horizontal magnetic fields.
Note that triangles show station locations and that tipper data was only recorded at three of
these stations. Plotting period on the vertical scale gives an impression of how the structure
varies with depth, since longer periods penetrate deeper into the Earth.
The data were then edited to exclude bad data points in the Winglink software package.
2-D inversions were implemented of the 3 data components using the non-linear
conjugate gradient inversion of Rodi and Mackie (2001). These three data components
are:
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Cerro Gordo MT survey, July 18 2012
(a) The transverse magnetic (TM) mode with electric current flow along the profile
(b) The transverse electric (TE) mode with electric current flow parallel to the strike
direction
(c) The vertical magnetic field transfer function (Tipper) that is part of the TE mode. This
quantity is the complex ratio of vertical and horizontal magnetic field components.
Individual inversions of these data components are shown in Figures 7, 8 and 9 respectively,
along with the fit of the inversion response to the measured data.
The TM inversion shown in Figure 7 used τ = 3 gave a satisfactory fit to the measured TM data
with root-mean-square (r.m.s.) misfit = 1.654. The pseudosections in Figure 7 illustrate the
good fit between the measured data and the response of the inversion model.
A higher r.m.s. misfit was obtained for the TE inversion that is shown in Figure 8 with an r.m.s.
misfit =3.32. The inclusion of static shifts reduced this to an r.m.s. misfit =3.317. The relatively
high r.m.s. misfit may indicate some 3-D induction effects.
The tipper vertical magnetic field data inversion was also successful in achieving a low r.m.s.
misfit as shown in Figure 9. Since vertical magnetic field data was only collected at three
stations the model is very smooth.
A range of joint inversions were then implemented to see which of the three data components
were mutually consistent and could be jointly inverted. As expected, the problems with the TE
mode meant that any inversion including these data was not able to achieve an r.m.s. less than
3. Thus the joint TM+HZ inversion was taken as giving the most complete image of subsurface
resistivity, as shown in Figure 10. A range of inversions were implemented using a series of τ
values to generate a trade-off L-curve, as shown in Figure 11. This confirmed the choice of tau =
3 as giving a compromise between fitting the model to an acceptable degree and generating a
realistic (not too rough) resistivity model.
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Cerro Gordo MT survey, July 18 2012
Figure 7 : (a) TM mode inversion model of Cerro Gordo profile obtained with the following
parameters. Rotation angle = 45°; frequency band = 300 – 0.0003 Hz; model = 96 x 128 cells;
regularization parameter, τ =3; apparent resistivity error floor = 5 %; phase error floor = 5%;
starting model = 100 ohm-m halfspace; static shifts not calculated; model = smoothest (1). (b)
Fit of measured data to inversion model response.
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Cerro Gordo MT survey, July 18 2012
Figure 8 : (a) TE mode inversion model obtained with the following parameters. Rotation angle
= 45°; frequency band = 300 – 0.0003 Hz; model = 96 x 128 cells; regularization parameter, τ
=3; apparent resistivity error floor = 10 %; phase error floor = 10%; starting model = 100 ohm-m
halfspace; static shifts not calculated ; model = smoothest (1). (b) Fit of measured data to
inversion model response.
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Cerro Gordo MT survey, July 18 2012
Figure 9 : (a) Tipper inversion model obtained with the following parameters. Rotation angle =
45°; frequency band = 300 – 0.0003 Hz; model = 96 x 128 cells; regularization parameter, τ =3;
error floor = 0.05 ; starting model = 100 ohm-m halfspace; model = smoothest (1). (b) Fit of
measured data to inversion model response.
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Figure 10 : (a) Resistivity model obtained by joint inversion of TM and Hz data (b) fit of data to
inversion model response. Inversion model obtained with the following parameters. Rotation
angle = 45°; frequency band = 300 – 0.0003 Hz; model = 96 x 128 cells; regularization
parameter, τ =3; apparent resistivity error floor = 10 %; phase error floor = 5%; starting model =
100 ohm-m halfspace; static shifts not calculated; model = smoothest (1).
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Figure 11 : Trade-off curve obtained by varying the regularization parameter, τ. When τ is large
(τ = 100) the model is smooth (roughness is low) and the r.m.s. misfit is relatively high. When
tau is small (τ = 0.01), the resistivity model is much rougher and a better fit is obtained (lower
r.m.s. misfit). The value of τ = 3 represents a compromise between these competing
requirements.
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The preferred inversion model is shown in more detail in Figure 12. Along most of the profile, a
shallow layer is observed with a resistivity of 10-30 Ωm and thickness of about 1 km. This is
likely a surface layer of weather material and unconsolidated sedimentary material. This is
underlain by more resistive material with resistivity exceeding 300 Ωm that is basement rock.
A dipping zone of low resistivity is observed at the east end of the profile. This is coincident
with the eastern edge of the elevated topography in the survey area, and could represent a
basement feature such as a zone of mineralization, a fault zone, or perhaps an aquifer.
Additional MT data are needed to the east to investigate if this feature is required by the data.
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6. References
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