Three-Dimensional Forward Modeling and Inversion Study of Transient Electromagnetic Method Considering Inhomogeneous Magnetic Permeability

Abstract

Traditional studies on Transient Electromagnetic Method (TEM) typically assume that the subsurface medium is non-magnetic. However, in regions with igneous rock accumulations or where the subsurface is rich in ferromagnetic minerals, neglecting the magnetic properties of the underground medium may lead to erroneous interpretations for TEM data. This paper conducts a 3-D TEM forward modeling and inversion study considering the non-uniformity cases of magnetic permeability. 3-D TEM forward modeling employs an edge-based finite element method using unstructured grids and a second-order implicit backward Euler method, achieving a modeling algorithm that simultaneously considers non-uniform models of magnetic permeability and resis-tivity. The accuracy of the modeling algorithm is verified by comparing it with the analytical solution of a homogeneous half-space model and the solution of a 1-D TEM forward modeling algorithm. 3-D TEM inversion employs the L-BFGS algorithm and synthetic examples considering non-uniform magnetic permeability are presented. The inversion results show good recovery for the resistivity and magnetic permeability models. Comparisons with the inversion results that neglect the non-uniformity of magnetic permeability validate the importance of considering the variation of permeability in 3-D TEM forward modeling and inversion.

Keywords

• transient electromagnetic method
• non-uniform magnetic permeability model
• 3-D forward modeling
• 3-D inversion