Comparison of terrain corrections based on the point source and line source DC methods

Abstract

In the direct current (DC) exploration method, topographic relief distorts the apparent resistivity curve. To eliminate effects of terrain fluctuations, two undulating terrains comprising valleys and ridges were investigated in the present study. An unstructured triangular mesh method in which the wave number k and its coefficient g were obtained using the integral method and the point and line source surveys were conducted using comsol multiphysics. Current sources were evaluated using two-dimensional (2-D) finite element forward modeling, whereas terrain correction was performed using both the comparison and conformal transformation methods. The results reveal comparable theoretical curves for the line and point sources, but quantitative characteristics of the curves differ. The comparison method is suitable for both curves, whereas the conformal transformation method is only applicable to the line source. Even though electric fields associated with the line and point sources differ, the comparison method that is based on the electrical cross-section curve of the line source and the electric profile curve of the point source remains effective.