GP31B-03:
Calculation and Analysis of Magnetic Gradient Tensor Components of Global Magnetic Models
Wednesday, 17 December 2014: 8:30 AM
Markus Schiffler1,2, Matthias Queitsch1,2, Michael Schneider2,3, Andreas Goepel1, Ronny Stolz2, Wolfram Krech2, Hans-Georg Meyer2 and Nina Kukowski1, (1)Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Institute of Geosciences, Jena, Germany, (2)Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology, Department of Photonic Detection, Jena, Germany, (3)Ilmenau University of Technology, Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Informatics, Ilmenau, Germany
Abstract:
Global Earth’s magnetic field models like the International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF), the World Magnetic Model (WMM) or the High Definition Geomagnetic Model (HDGM) are harmonic analysis regressions to available magnetic observations stored as spherical harmonic coefficients. Input data combine recordings from magnetic observatories, airborne magnetic surveys and satellite data. The advance of recent magnetic satellite missions like SWARM and its predecessors like CHAMP offer high resolution measurements while providing a full global coverage. This deserves expansion of the theoretical framework of harmonic synthesis to magnetic gradient tensor components. Measurement setups for Full Tensor Magnetic Gradiometry equipped with high sensitive gradiometers like the JeSSY STAR system can directly measure the gradient tensor components, which requires precise knowledge about the background regional gradients which can be calculated with this extension. In this study we develop the theoretical framework for calculation of the magnetic gradient tensor components from the harmonic series expansion and apply our approach to the IGRF and HDGM. The gradient tensor component maps for entire Earth’s surface produced for the IGRF show low gradients reflecting the variation from the dipolar character, whereas maps for the HDGM (up to degree N=729) reveal new information about crustal structure, especially across the oceans, and deeply situated ore bodies. From the gradient tensor components, the rotational invariants, the Eigenvalues, and the normalized source strength (NSS) are calculated. The NSS focuses on shallower and stronger anomalies. Euler deconvolution using either the tensor components or the NSS applied to the HDGM reveals an estimate of the average source depth for the entire magnetic crust as well as individual plutons and ore bodies. The NSS reveals the boundaries between the anomalies of major continental provinces like southern Africa or the Eastern European Craton.
