ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS IN AN N‐LAYER ANISOTROPIC HALF‐SPACE

Abstract

From Maxwell’s equations and Ohm’s law for a horizontally anisotropic medium, it may be shown that two independent plane wave modes propagate perpendicular to the plane of the anisotropy. Boundary conditions at the interfaces in an n‐layered model permit the calculation, through successive matrix multiplications, of the fields at the surface in terms of the fields propagated into the basal infinite half space. Specifying the magnetic field at the surface allows the calculation of the resultant electric fields, and the calculation of the entries of a tensor impedance relationship. These calculations have been programmed for the digital computer and an interpretation of impedances obtained from field measurements may thus be made in terms of the anisotropic layering. In addition, apparent resistivities in orthogonal directions have been calculated for specific models and compared to experimental data. It is apparent that the large scatter of observed resistivities can be caused by small changes in the polarization of the magnetic field.