@article{BeckenRitterBedrosianetal.2011, author = {Becken, Michael and Ritter, Oliver and Bedrosian, Paul A. and Weckmann, Ute}, title = {Correlation between deep fluids, tremor and creep along the central San Andreas fault}, series = {Nature : the international weekly journal of science}, volume = {480}, journal = {Nature : the international weekly journal of science}, number = {7375}, publisher = {Nature Publ. Group}, address = {London}, issn = {0028-0836}, doi = {10.1038/nature10609}, pages = {87 -- U248}, year = {2011}, abstract = {The seismicity pattern along the San Andreas fault near Parkfield and Cholame, California, varies distinctly over a length of only fifty kilometres. Within the brittle crust, the presence of frictionally weak minerals, fault-weakening high fluid pressures and chemical weakening are considered possible causes of an anomalously weak fault northwest of Parkfield(1-4). Non-volcanic tremor from lower-crustal and upper-mantle depths(5-7) is most pronounced about thirty kilometres southeast of Parkfield and is thought to be associated with high pore-fluid pressures at depth(8). Here we present geophysical evidence of fluids migrating into the creeping section of the San Andreas fault that seem to originate in the region of the uppermost mantle that also stimulates tremor, and evidence that along-strike variations in tremor activity and amplitude are related to strength variations in the lower crust and upper mantle. Interconnected fluids can explain a deep zone of anomalously low electrical resistivity that has been imaged by magnetotelluric data southwest of the Parkfield-Cholame segment. Near Cholame, where fluids seem to be trapped below a high-resistivity cap, tremor concentrates adjacent to the inferred fluids within a mechanically strong zone of high resistivity. By contrast, sub-vertical zones of low resistivity breach the entire crust near the drill hole of the San Andreas Fault Observatory at Depth, northwest of Parkfield, and imply pathways for deep fluids into the eastern fault block, coincident with a mechanically weak crust and the lower tremor amplitudes in the lower crust. Fluid influx to the fault system is consistent with hypotheses of fault-weakening high fluid pressures in the brittle crust.}, language = {en} } @article{StreichBecken2011, author = {Streich, R. and Becken, Michael}, title = {Sensitivity of controlled-source electromagnetic fields in planarly layered media}, series = {Geophysical journal international}, volume = {187}, journal = {Geophysical journal international}, number = {2}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Hoboken}, issn = {0956-540X}, doi = {10.1111/j.1365-246X.2011.05203.x}, pages = {705 -- 728}, year = {2011}, abstract = {The study of electromagnetic (EM) field sensitivities is useful for assessing the feasibility of controlled-source electromagnetic (CSEM) surveys. Sensitivity calculations are also a principal building block of EM inversion schemes. Sensitivities are formally given by the derivatives of the EM field components with respect to conductivity. For horizontally layered media, these derivatives can be evaluated analytically, offering advantages in computational efficiency and accuracy over numerical evaluation. We present a complete set of explicit analytic expressions for the EM field sensitivities in 1-D VTI-anisotropic media for horizontal and vertical electric and magnetic dipole sources, and also for finite horizontal electric sources. Since our derivations are based on a formulation for EM fields that is quite general in allowing for sources and receivers at any depth, our sensitivity expressions exhibit the same generality. We verify our expressions by comparison to numerical solutions, and finally present application examples that demonstrate the utility and versatility of these expressions for CSEM feasibility studies.}, language = {en} } @article{StreichBecken2011, author = {Streich, Rita and Becken, Michael}, title = {Electromagnetic fields generated by finite-length wire sources: comparison with point dipole solutions}, series = {Geophysical prospecting}, volume = {59}, journal = {Geophysical prospecting}, number = {2}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Malden}, issn = {0016-8025}, doi = {10.1111/j.1365-2478.2010.00926.x}, pages = {361 -- 374}, year = {2011}, abstract = {In present-day land and marine controlled-source electromagnetic (CSEM) surveys, electromagnetic fields are commonly generated using wires that are hundreds of metres long. Nevertheless, simulations of CSEM data often approximate these sources as point dipoles. Although this is justified for sufficiently large source-receiver distances, many real surveys include frequencies and distances at which the dipole approximation is inaccurate. For 1D layered media, electromagnetic (EM) fields for point dipole sources can be computed using well-known quasi-analytical solutions and fields for sources of finite length can be synthesized by superposing point dipole fields. However, the calculation of numerous point dipole fields is computationally expensive, requiring a large number of numerical integral evaluations. We combine a more efficient representation of finite-length sources in terms of components related to the wire and its end points with very general expressions for EM fields in 1D layered media. We thus obtain a formulation that requires fewer numerical integrations than the superposition of dipole fields, permits source and receiver placement at any depth within the layer stack and can also easily be integrated into 3D modelling algorithms. Complex source geometries, such as wires bent due to surface obstructions, can be simulated by segmenting the wire and computing the responses for each segment separately. We first describe our finite-length wire expressions and then present 1D and 3D examples of EM fields due to finite-length sources for typical land and marine survey geometries and discuss differences to point dipole fields.}, language = {en} } @article{StreichBeckenRitter2011, author = {Streich, Rita and Becken, Michael and Ritter, Oliver}, title = {2.5D controlled-source EM modeling with general 3D source geometries}, series = {Geophysics}, volume = {76}, journal = {Geophysics}, number = {6}, publisher = {Society of Exploration Geophysicists}, address = {Tulsa}, issn = {0016-8033}, doi = {10.1190/GEO2011-0111.1}, pages = {F387 -- F393}, year = {2011}, abstract = {Most 2.5D controlled-source electromagnetic (CSEM) modeling algorithms presented to date explicitly consider only sources that are point dipoles oriented parallel or perpendicular to the direction of constant conductivity. This makes simulations of complex source geometries expensive, requiring separate evaluations of many point dipole fields, and thus limits the practical applicability of such schemes for simulating and interpreting field data. We present a novel 2.5D CSEM modeling scheme that overcomes this limitation and permits efficient simulations of sources with general shape and orientation by evaluating fields for the entire source at once. We accommodate general sources by using a secondary field approach, in which primary fields are computed for the general source and a 1D background conductivity model. To carry out the required Fourier transforms between space and wavenumber domain using the same fast cosine and sine transform filters as in conventional algorithms, we split the primary and secondary fields into their symmetric and antisymmetric parts. For complex 3D source geometries, this approach is significantly more efficient than previous 2.5D algorithms. Our finite-difference algorithm also includes novel approaches for divergence correction at low frequencies and EM field interpolation across conductivity discontinuities. We describe the modeling scheme and demonstrate its accuracy and efficiency by comparisons of 2.5D-simulated data with 1D and 3D results.}, language = {en} }