This paper describes the airborne electromagnetic (AEM) system operated by the Joint Airborne geoscience Capability (JAC), a partnership between the Finnish and British Geological Surveys. The system is a component of a 3-in-1, fixed-wing facility acquiring magnetic gradiometer and full spectrum radiometric data alongside the wing-tip, frequency-domain AEM measurements. The AEM system has recently (2005) been upgraded from 2 to 4 frequencies and now provides a bandwidth from 900 Hz to 25 kHz. The fixed-wing configuration of 4 dual vertical coplanar coils, offers a high signal/noise by virtue of the wingspan separation of the sensors. This unique configuration allows 3-in-1 surveys to be successfully performed at a variety of survey elevations when regulatory conditions are imposed. Its deployment on a twin-engine aircraft also permits low altitude surveying in countries, such as the UK, where this is a requirement.The development of the new AEM-05 system has been incremental and its history can be traced back over five decades. The AEM data acquired in the Finnish National Mapping project, and across northern Europe, have been used extensively in mineral exploration. More recent projects have investigated the application of the data to environmental, hydrogeological and land quality issues. These studies have been enhanced by reducing the flight line separation from 200 m (the national highresolution scale) to 50 m.Our surveys also increasingly involve the application of AEM across populated areas often with extensive infrastructure. Additional secondary instrumentation has been introduced to provide an increased understanding of the data and the AEM responses observed. The secondary systems include an accurate, high sampling rate laser altimeter, a downward-looking digital camera to record the flight path, a 50/60 Hz power line monitor and a GPS gyroscope. The paper is intended as an overview and provides descriptions of the new AEM system, the secondary systems now employed and some of the software used to provide accurate and levelled AEM data. Recent applications of the system are reviewed and the challenging nature of the new subsurface information being revealed is demonstrated.3
Numerical models employed in ground VLF modeling use a normally incident (homogeneous) plane wave as a primary field. We show that these models are not directly applicable to modeling the impedance and wavetilt in the air, quantities needed in the interpretation of airborne VLF resistivity measurements. Instead, the primary field must be replaced by an inhomogeneous plane wave incident on the ground at an angle close to 90 degrees in order to provide the correct behavior of the apparent resistivities in the air. VLF magnetic polarization parameters, however, can be modeled in the air using the normally incident plane wave as a primary field. We also show that the plane‐wave analysis provides the same attenuation characteristics for the wavetilt in the air that is predicted by the Norton’s surface wave obtained by using the vertical electric dipole as a source. Use of the inhomogeneous plane wave introduces the vertical component of the electric field in the model. A 2‐D modeling technique based on the network solution is used to demonstrate the effects of the vertical electric field in the H‐polarization case. The vertical electric field generates charge distributions on the horizontal boundaries of conductors. In the case of a vertical sheet‐like conductor, these charges cause a slight asymmetry in apparent‐resistivity anomalies. Attenuation characteristics of various VLF anomalies with altitude are also presented. The H‐polarization anomalies attenuate much more rapidly in the air than those for E‐polarization due to the difference in the dominating source of EM fields in each polarization.
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