Pierre Keating - Geological Survey of Canada

Euler deconvolution is used for rapid interpretation of magnetic and gravity data. It is particularly good at delineating contacts and rapid depth estimation. The quality of the depth estimation mostly depends on the choice of the proper structural index. The structural index is a function of the geometry of the causative bodies.

For gravity surveys, station distribution is in general irregular and the gravity field is aliased. This results in erroneous depth estimates.

By weighting the Euler equations by an error function proportional to station accuracies and the inter-station distance it is possible to reject solutions resulting from aliasing of the field and less accurate measurement. The technique is demonstrated on Bouguer anomaly data from the Charlevoix region in Eastern Canada.

Figure 1: Euler solutions obtained using the standard technique larger image [GIF, 55.0 kb, 620 X 521, notice]

Figure 2: Euler solutions obtained when the Euler equations are weighted with an error function. Note that deep solutions in the northwest area of the map are no longer present. larger image [GIF, 59.6 kb, 620 X 521, notice]