Locating an old well in eastern Nebraska with a low-cost drone-based magnetic surveying system

Abstract

We assembled a low-cost drone-based magnetic surveying system from a Scintrex ENVI PRO proton magnetometer and DJI Matrice 600 Pro drone. We used this system to locate an old exploration well in eastern Nebraska that is now out of sight in the middle of a cornfield. Because the well was drilled nearly five decades ago, before the advent of GPS, its coordinates are inaccurate. We used the magnetic signature of the well's casing to locate it. Our survey shows the pronounced magnetic anomaly approximately 35 m to the southwest of the well's database coordinates. The results of our survey show that our drone-based magnetic system provides a fast and efficient way to record magnetic data.