Interpretation of Potential Field Tensor Data Using the Tensor Local Wavenumber Method and Comparison with the Conventional Local Wavenumber Method

Abstract

AbstractMeasurements of potential field tensors (PFT) have been widely used in geophysical exploration because of the advantages of big capacity, high‐precision, and low noise. In this paper, we suggest using tensor local wavenumber (TLW) to interpret potential field tensor data. We firstly define the tensor local wavenumber, and then derive the inversion formula based on the tensor local wavenumber. The TLW method does not require any prior information about the nature of the source to estimate location parameters, and then the nature of the source can be obtained by the source location parameters. The effectiveness of the TLW method is demonstrated using theoretical potential field data, and we compare it with the conventional local wavenumber (CLW) method. Our work shows that the inversion results of the TLW method are more accurate. Especially in the case that observational points are distributed unreasonably, the TLW method still can yield accurate results. At last, we applied the TLW method to a gravity data example in Texas, USA, and inversion results are consistent with previous work.