| Abstract: | Isostasy is used to describe a condition to which the Earth's crust and mantle tend, in the absence of disturbing forces. Eliminating the gravity effect of crust, isostatic gravity anomalies contain abundant geological structure information, which can be extracted by edge detection methods of gravity or magnetic anomalies. In order to accurately obtain the edge information, a great variety of methods, such as analytical signal amplitude, tilt angle, theta map θ, etc., have been proposed by domestic and international scholars, and many significant advances have been made in recent days. However, each method has its advantages and disadvantages. Wavelet transform is an effective method developed in recent years. It has the enhanced noise resistance and a feature of multi-scale decomposition, and can be used to identify more detailed information of edge. Here with the aim of demonstrating its effectiveness in faults detection, we established a theoretical geological model, which consists of five geological bodies. The geological bodies with different density present a fault zone and the areas on its sides, as well as two geological bodies with different geological properties. We calculated the gravity anomalies caused by this model, in addition, we added 5% Gaussian noise to the gravity anomalies for a comparative analysis to analyze the effects of wavelet transform on edge detection. Finally, we applied wavelet transform method to the decomposition of isostatic gravity anomalies, obtained 1st to 5th order wavelet transform details of the gravity anomalies, and compared with the well-studied faults in the Qaidam Basin and its adjacent areas. The results obtained by wavelet transform matched well with the known faults, the anomalies of different order denote the location of different fault zone(e.g. the Tanan Fault is nearly invisible on the original and the first order isostasy gravity anomalies map, but is well expressed on the second order isostasy gravity anomalies map; The apparent details of the 4th and 5th indicate that faults in front of the Saishiteng-Xitieshan Shan are deep faults and they are likely to distribute continuously in the deep underground). Besides, we calculated the estimated depth of isostasy gravity anomalies of different order through power spectrum analysis as well, finding that different faults extend to different depth. For example, the Danghe-Nanshan Fault and the Southern Fault in the middle Qilian Shan are 10km in depth approximately, but the faults in front of the Saishiteng-Xitieshan Shan are more than 70km in depth. In addition, we made two comparative studies, the first one is comparing the results mentioned above with the result through wavelet transform of Bouguer gravity anomalies. The second one is comparing with the results through other edge detection methods of isostatic gravity anomalies. In spite of the inconformity between anomalies and the faults to some extent, which is likely caused by the change of lithology or faults distribution in the deep underground, we finally found that:more subtle details induced from faults can be detected from isostatic gravity anomalies by using wavelet transform because of its feature of multi-scale decomposition. The wavelet transform method is proved to be more accurate and reliable(at least in the Qaidam Basin and its adjacent areas)comparing with other methods. |
