DISCUSSION OF “AN EVALUATION OF BASEMENT DEPTH DETERMINATION FROM AIRBORNE MAGNETOMETER DATA” BY PETER JACOBSEN, JR.

Abstract

Mr. Jacobsen’s article and the accompanying discussions on the scope and outlook for the current interpretational practices in aeromagnetic surveys are very timely and deserve the attention of all geophysicists as well as exploration management. Since World War II the aeromagnetic surveys have replaced the ground magnetic surveys as a reconnaissance exploration tool chiefly because of the former’s rapidity and cheapness in data‐gathering. In this process, however, the aerial technique has lost one advantage going with the ground surveys. In land surveys the practice has been to make simultaneous magnetic and gravity observations and the interpretations of basement features are made from these paired observations. I believe that the absence of concurrent information on gravity has been a real handicap with aeromagnetic interpretation in reliably locating basement features in the early stages of exploration. Perhaps the present aerial gravitymeter instrumentation can be soon improved to desired sensitivity for exploration so that simultaneous gravity‐magnetic observations from the air will be possible. In large unexplored sedimentary areas the gravity data are as valuable, sometimes more, to the interpretation of magnetic data as a knowledge of the magnetic properties of any out‐cropping rocks.