Efficiency of a Marine Towed Electrical Resistivity Method

• Main Authors: Chih-Wen Chiang, Tada-nori Goto, Chien-Chih Chen, Shu-Kun Hsu
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chinese Geoscience Union 2011-01-01
• Series: Terrestrial, Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences
• Subjects: Marine towed electrical resistivity; DC resistivity survey; Sulfide deposits; Methane hydrates; Forward modeling
• Online Access: http://tao.cgu.org.tw/images/attachments/v224p443.pdf

In contrast to marine sediments, because of large electrical resistivity anomalies found in sulfide deposits and methane hydrates, resistivity measurements such as marine towed electrical resistivity (MTER) might be a feasible method for discovering those natural minerals. To determine the feasibility of the MTER method we examined arrays consisting of a pole electrical dipole (PED), vertical electrical dipole (VED) and horizontal electrical dipole (HED). The VED array showed a maximum difference in electric fields of 36 o/o and 105 o/o in the resistive and conductive models, respectively, while the PED and HED arrays yielded worse results of around 13 o/o to 19 o/o, respectively. The VED array showed a higher difference in electric fields than both the HED and PED arrays in the two models. Therefore, we suggest that a VED array with a large electrical current would be most conducive leading to the discovery of such minerals during MTER surveys.