Electrical and EM methods, 1980-2005

The last two decades saw major advances in data collection, processing, and interpretation of electrical and EM data. Lower transmitter frequencies for airborne time-domain EM systems have made possible surveys in areas where conductive cover previously screened basement conductors. As with every other branch of technology, the evolving speed of the silicon chip and of streaming data to hard disk has revolutionized data collection and noise reduction processing. Major advances have been made on increasing the signal-to-noise ratios in ground EM data acquisition systems. Full-waveform recording and the use of multiple receivers are becoming common for ground EM techniques. Previously intractable 2D and 3D data inversions are now slowly becoming available. Finally, controlled-source EM techniques are now being used to detect and characterize hydrocarbon-bearing reservoirs in deepwater areas

Seismoelectric reflection and transmission at a fluid/porous-medium interface

The dispersion relation for seismoelectric wave propagation in poroelastic media is formulated in terms of effective densities comprising all viscous and electrokinetic coupling effects. Using Helmholtz decomposition, two seismoelectric conversion coefficients are derived, for an incident P-wave upon an interface between a compressible fluid and a poroelastic medium. These coefficients relate the incident P-wave to a reflected electromagnetic wave in the fluid, and a transmitted electromagnetic wave in the porous medium. The dependency on angle of incidence and frequency is computed. Using orthodox and interference fluxes, it is shown that energy conservation is satisfied. A sensitivity analysis indicates that electrolyte concentration, viscosity, and permeability highly influence seismoelectric conversion.GeotechnologyCivil Engineering and Geoscience