A comparison of helicopter‐borne electromagnetic systems for hydrogeologic studies

The increased application of airborne electromagnetic surveys to hydrogeological studies is driving a demand for data that can consistently be inverted for accurate subsurface resistivity structure from the near surface to depths of several hundred metres. We present an evaluation of three commercial airborne electromagnetic systems over two test blocks in western Nebraska, USA. The selected test blocks are representative of shallow and deep alluvial aquifer systems with low groundwater salinity and an electrically conductive base of aquifer. The aquifer units show significant lithologic heterogeneity and include both modern and ancient river systems. We compared the various data sets to one another and inverted resistivity models to borehole lithology and to ground geophysical models. We find distinct differences among the airborne electromagnetic systems as regards the spatial resolution of models, the depth of investigation, and the ability to recover near‐surface resistivity variations. We further identify systematic biases in some data sets, which we attribute to incomplete or inexact calibration or compensation procedures.     

航空瞬变电磁法对地下典型目标体的探测能力研究

航空电磁法的探测能力受飞行高度、发射波形、发射磁矩和发射基频等因素的影响,致使不同分量间的勘探能力存在差异.航空电磁如对所有磁场和磁感应分量、on-和off-time数据进行观测和解释,不仅数据量大、耗时长,而且出现大量冗余数据.目前国内针对此问题尚无系统解决方法.本文针对吊舱式直升机航空电磁系统,采用积分方程法求解频率域响应,经汉克尔变换转换到时间域,计算了地下三维目标体的B和dB/dt时间域响应.利用异常体响应与背景场响应作比值,并通过设定响应阀值定义最大勘探深度,进而分析不同发射波形、不同分量以及on-和off-time期间的航空电磁系统的探测能力.基于本文分析手段,可根据实际勘探目标,确定一套探测能力较强的航空电磁最佳参数组合,为野外测量和数据处理提供技术指导,高效完成勘探任务.     

Sharp spatially constrained inversion with applications to transient electromagnetic data

Time‐domain electromagnetic data are conveniently inverted by using smoothly varying 1D models with fixed vertical discretization. The vertical smoothness of the obtained models stems from the application of Occam‐type regularization constraints, which are meant to address the ill‐posedness of the problem. An important side effect of such regularization, however, is that horizontal layer boundaries can no longer be accurately reproduced as the model is required to be smooth. This issue can be overcome by inverting for fewer layers with variable thicknesses; nevertheless, to decide on a particular and constant number of layers for the parameterization of a large survey inversion can be equally problematic. Here, we present a focusing regularization technique to obtain the best of both methodologies. The new focusing approach allows for accurate reconstruction of resistivity distributions using a fixed vertical discretization while preserving the capability to reproduce horizontal boundaries. The formulation is flexible and can be coupled with traditional lateral/spatial smoothness constraints in order to resolve interfaces in stratified soils with no additional hypothesis about the number of layers. The method relies on minimizing the number of layers of non‐vanishing resistivity gradient, instead of minimizing the norm of the model variation itself. This approach ensures that the results are consistent with the measured data while favouring, at the same time, the retrieval of horizontal abrupt changes. In addition, the focusing regularization can also be applied in the horizontal direction in order to promote the reconstruction of lateral boundaries such as faults. We present the theoretical framework of our regularization methodology and illustrate its capabilities by means of both synthetic and field data sets. We further demonstrate how the concept has been integrated in our existing spatially constrained inversion formalism and show its application to large‐scale time‐domain electromagnetic data inversions.     

发射电流波形对瞬变电磁响应的影响

本文研究了不同发射电流波形对瞬变电磁(TEM)响应的影响,利用自由空间中回线作为目标体,推导出方波、梯形波、半正弦波、三角波激励的响应.研究表明:对于低电导率目标体,同种波形激励的响应在有发射电流期间(on-time)与无发射电流期间(off-time)的幅度相近,四种波形中方波激励响应最强.由于off-time采集可以获得更高的信噪比,因而探测低电导率目标体时一般采用方波激励,采集off-time信号.对于高电导率目标体,off-time响应幅度随电导率增加而迅速下降,而半正弦与三角波激励的on-time响应幅度基本不随电导率变化,因而航空TEM可以采用半正弦与三角波进行on-time采集,并通过适当地提高激励电流的基频,以提高信噪比与空间分辨率.     

低阻区利用地回路标定航空TEM系统的理论研究

本文针对吊舱式航空TEM系统,建立了基于地回路的系统参数标定模型,并分别计算了自由空间模型响应(TLR)、均匀大地模型响应(TER)、地回路与大地耦合模型响应(TELR和TLER).由于TER响应表现为幅度沿测线不变,据此提出通过增加拟合参数的方法实现系统标定,消除了TER响应对标定的影响.TELR和TLER早期响应具...     

Absolute airborne gravimetry: a feasibility study

We report here the results obtained during a feasibility study that was pursued in order to evaluate the performances of absolute airborne gravimetry. In contrast to relative systems, which use spring‐type gravimeters, each measurement acquired by absolute systems is independent from the others and the instrument is not suffering from problems like instrumental drift, frequency response of the spring and variation of the calibration factor. After a validation of the dynamic performance of the experimental setup in a moving truck, a comparison between the experimental airborne data retrieved over the Swiss Alps and those obtained by ground upward continuation at flight altitude allow us to state that airborne absolute gravimetry is feasible. The first test flight shows a spatial resolution comparable to those obtained by relative airborne gravimetry. For a wavelength on the order of 12 km the absolute value of gravity can be evaluated with an uncertainty of 6.9 mGal.     

新疆阿尔金盘龙沟金矿高光谱蚀变矿物找矿标志研究

高光谱遥感技术是近年来兴起并逐渐成熟的蚀变矿物研究方法。盘龙沟金矿床围岩蚀变发育,主要蚀变类型包括硅化、绿泥石化、绢云母化、碳酸盐化、钠长石化、褐铁矿化等,蚀变与金矿化关系密切。文章通过航空高光谱遥感数据和地面光谱数据,提取和诊断盘龙沟金矿床的不同地段、不同地质体的蚀变矿物信息,研究分析金矿区的航空和地面高光谱蚀变矿物、蚀变矿物组合特征,以及矿区围岩蚀变特征,总结航空和地面光谱蚀变矿物分带找矿标志规律,结合金矿床地质矿产特征,系统剖析金矿床的综合找矿标志特征,构建盘龙沟金矿床高光谱蚀变矿物找矿标志;同时依据绢云母、绿泥石的诊断光谱,研究两种蚀变矿物的光谱变化特征,分析了金矿床围岩蚀变的形成条件和蚀变矿物的温压条件,进而初步推测盘龙沟金矿床为中低温热液型金矿,其矿体与围岩形成的环境条件不同。     

Stochastic gradient boosting classification trees for forest fuel types mapping through airborne laser scanning and IRS LISS-III imagery

This paper presents an application of Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) data in conjunction with an IRS LISS-III image for mapping forest fuel types. For two study areas of 165 km² and 487 km² in Sicily (Italy), 16,761 plots of size 30-m × 30-m were distributed using a tessellation-based stratified sampling scheme. ALS metrics and spectral signatures from IRS extracted for each plot were used as predictors to classify forest fuel types observed and identified by photointerpretation and fieldwork. Following use of traditional parametric methods that produced unsatisfactory results, three non-parametric classification approaches were tested: (i) classification and regression tree (CART), (ii) the CART bagging method called Random Forests, and (iii) the CART bagging/boosting stochastic gradient boosting (SGB) approach. This contribution summarizes previous experiences using ALS data for estimating forest variables useful for fire management in general and for fuel type mapping, in particular. It summarizes characteristics of classification and regression trees, presents the pre-processing operation, the classification algorithms, and the achieved results. The results demonstrated superiority of the SGB method with overall accuracy of 84%. The most relevant ALS metric was canopy cover, defined as the percent of non-ground returns. Other relevant metrics included the spectral information from IRS and several other ALS metrics such as percentiles of the height distribution, the mean height of all returns, and the number of returns.     

Change detection in urban areas by object-based analysis and on-the-fly comparison of multi-view ALS data

The use of helicopters as a sensor platform offers flexible fields of application due to adaptable flying speed at low flight levels. Modern helicopters are equipped with radar altimeters, inertial navigation systems (INS), forward-looking cameras and even laser scanners for automatic obstacle avoidance. If the 3D geometry of the terrain is already available, the analysis of airborne laser scanner (ALS) measurements may also be used for terrain-referenced navigation and change detection. In this paper, we present a framework for on-the-fly comparison of current ALS data to given reference data of an urban area. In contrast to classical difference methods, our approach extends the concept of occupancy grids known from robot mapping. However, it does not blur the measured information onto the grid cells. The proposed change detection method applies the Dempster–Shafer theory to identify conflicting evidence along the laser pulse propagation path. Additional attributes are considered to decide whether detected changes are of man-made origin or occurring due to seasonal effects. The concept of online change detection has been successfully validated in offline experiments with recorded ALS data streams. Results are shown for an urban test site at which multi-view ALS data were acquired at an interval of 1 year.