A continuously towed vertical bipole source for marine magnetometric resistivity surveying

Abstract

We propose to use an approximately vertical bipole electric current towed by a ship as a source for a Magnetometric Resistivity (MMR) method. This proposal requires the precise positioning of the bottom electrode for the bipole source, and our newly developed MMR system achieved this. We conducted an MMR experiment in the central Mariana Trough, and we obtained data using two different methods along a survey line: one method towed a bipole source transmitting continuously along the survey line, and the other used a conventional vertical bipole source transmitting at several stationary transmission stations along the survey line. We found that the towed bipole source tilted from the vertical by an angle of 8 degrees at the maximum during the MMR experiment. We compared the results from the two methods to evaluate the towed bipole source method. Our results indicate that the tilted bipole source approximates well with the vertical bipole source at the mid-point between the surface and the bottom electrodes. Since the towed bipole source method requires much less survey time and the results show a higher spatial resolution, it is a powerful tool for MMR experiments to image a shallow oceanic crustal resistivity structure efficiently.