A New Idea of NREGS and its Application to Oil Exploration, Case Study: Detecting Geological Salt Structures in Northern Coasts of Persian Gulf

Abstract

If Correlation of Gravitational Data with Topography is minimized correctly and coherently, Interpretation of Land-Based Gravitational Data will be a valuable clue leading us to detecting Lateral Variations of underground Mass-Density Anomalies particularly for Oil Exploration Purposes. For this reason, the author recommends a New Idea based on new mathematical definition of ?Nearest Reference Equi-Gravitational Surface (NREGS)? for making uncorrelated gravitational data with topography. NREGS is Reference Equi-Gravitational Surface in exterior of earth where the gravitational data will be upward-continued to and interpreted, too. The Mathematical Theory of the Idea explains that gravitational data on NREGS should be the most uncorrelated with topography. Hence, gravitational data on it can easily illustrate lateral density variation of geological substructure with a lot of clear contrasts being so useful for horizontally detecting underground density anomalies e.g. salt structures. In a case study based on 6350 gravitational observations in Coastal Fars of Iran, the author applied NREGS Idea for exploration of salt structures. There, NREGS idea detects all outcropped salt structures and also, it shows some other Low Anomalies which can be underground hidden salt structures. In addition, the case study shows that the gravitational data on NREGS is statistically more uncorrelated with topography than other data e.g. Bouguer Anomaly, Free-Air Anomaly, etc. It means that the case study practically proves the theory of the New Idea, too.