Determination of the Earth’s Magnetic Field Gradients from Satellites Measurements and Their Inversion over the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly

Abstract

We computed magnetic field gradients at satellite altitude, over Europe with emphasis on the Kursk Magnetic Anomaly (KMA). They were calculated using the CHAMP satellite total magnetic anomalies. Our computations were done to determine how the magnetic field observations data from the new ESA/Swarm satellites could be utilized to determine the structure of the magnetization of the Earth’s crust, especially in the region of the KMA. Ten years of CHAMP data were used to simulate the Swarm data. An initial east magnetic anomaly gradient map of Europe was computed and subsequently the North, East and Vertical magnetic gradients for the KMA region were calculated. The vertical gradient of the KMA was also determined using Hilbert transforms. Inversion of the total KMA was derived using Simplex and Simulated Annealing algorithms. The depths of the upper and lower boundaries are calculated downward from the 324 km elevation of the satellite. Our resulting inversion depth model is a horizontal quadrangle. The maximum errors are determined by the model parameter errors.