Delineating and modelling an underground water conduit by scattered micro-gravity data and electrical resistivity sounding

Vahid E. Ardestani

doi:10.1071/EG09043

RESEARCH ARTICLE

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Delineating and modelling an underground water conduit by scattered micro-gravity data and electrical resistivity sounding

Vahid E. Ardestani

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

Institute of Geophysics, University of Tehran, Kargar Shomali St., PO Box 14155-6466, Iran and Center of Excellence in Geomatics Engineering and Disaster Management, Kargar Shomali St., Technical Faculty of University of Tehran, Iran. Email: ebrahimz@ut.ac.ir

Exploration Geophysics 41(3) 210-218 https://doi.org/10.1071/EG09043
Submitted: 30 September 2009 Accepted: 17 August 2010 Published: 15 September 2010

Abstract

Scattered micro-gravity data and electrical resistivity sounding are used in a very rough terrain area to delineate the underground water conduit in a karst zone.

A dense digital terrain model is used to compute terrain corrections and Bouguer gravity anomalies. Residual gravity anomalies are computed by the polynomial fitting method. The sun shading filter and first vertical derivatives are applied to residual anomalies to delineate the conduit.

The karst zone including the conduit is modelled by the well known Marqurt-Levenberg inversion technique. An electrical resistivity survey has also been carried out. The results of electrical soundings confirm the existence of a high-resistivity layer cut by a low-resistivity channel at the depth estimated through micro-gravity data.

Key words: electrical soundings, scattered micro-gravity data, sun-shading, 2-D inversion.

Acknowledgements

The author is thankful to Eng. Vahab Sharbaf Shoar and Eng. Saeed Salimi Davarzan from the Institute of Geophysics, the University of Tehran, for collecting the data. Special thanks are given to Sahrakav and Mahab-Ghods Consulting Engineering Companies for providing the electrical soundings results and geological map.

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