The Use of Curvature in Potential-Field Interpretation

Abstract

Potential-field anomalies can be transformed into special functions that form peaks and ridges over isolated sources, and have curvature values at the peaks and ridge crests that are related to the source depths. For gridded data, the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the curvature matrix associated with a quadratic surface that is fit to the special function within 3´3 windows can be used to locate the sources and estimate their depths and strikes. Discrete source locations estimated in this manner can be connected into lines that follow contacts, faults, and other mappable features based on distance and azimuth criteria.