Abstract
Transportation has become a key bottleneck which restricts economic development in Western China. However, during the construction of the western railway, the permafrost problem has plagued railway construction on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau, and has not yet been resolved. Accurately identifying permafrost by geophysical method is the most effective means to solve this problem. However, the mountainous and plateau terrain in Western China impose huge challenges in collecting geophysical data. To address this issue, this paper proposes an airborne transient electromagnetic method to collect geophysical electromagnetic data to identify permafrost in the mountains and plateaus of Western China. Based on Maxwell’s equations, the forward model of the airborne electromagnetic was derived, and the finite element method was used to calculate the two-dimensional (2D) space electromagnetic responses of different permafrost geo-electrical models. Furthermore, a coupling function was constructed to estimate the distribution of the resistivity of the permafrost by the least-squares fitting algorithm. Comparison between inversion resistivity distribution and the geo-electrical model showed that the proposed airborne transient electromagnetic method was valid for exploring the permafrost in the mountains and the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau in Western China.
Highlights
In order to reduce the economic gap between Eastern and Western China, the National Council established a group for the Development of the Western Region in 2000, and the Vice Premier Jiabao
The equipment carried by an aircraft to explore the earth is called the airborne transient electromagnetic method
A large amount of permafrost is distributed in the mountains and on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau in Western China
Summary
In order to reduce the economic gap between Eastern and Western China, the National Council established a group for the Development of the Western Region in 2000, and the Vice Premier Jiabao. The purpose of the development of the airborne electromagnetic method was mainly to overcome overcome difficult terrain factors and enhance work efficiency. One could analyze the resistivity of the permafrost area using the geophysical electromagnetic method to detect the permafrost [23]. Very little work has explored permafrost detection using TEM and other airborne electromagnetic methods, especially for research of permafrost regions in Western China. To address this issue, this paper attempted to study, by using the airborne transient electromagnetic method to explore, the shallow geological problems of permafrost detection in the western plateau cold region by numerical simulation and hoped to provide reliable data for the evaluation of permafrost disasters
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