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Terracing potential field data
Author(s) -
Cooper G.R.J.,
Cowan D.R.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
geophysical prospecting
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.735
H-Index - 79
eISSN - 1365-2478
pISSN - 0016-8025
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2478.2009.00791.x
Subject(s) - curvature , operator (biology) , laplace operator , contour line , directional derivative , field (mathematics) , interpretation (philosophy) , matlab , constant curvature , derivative (finance) , geology , geometry , algorithm , mathematical analysis , geodesy , computer science , mathematics , physics , pure mathematics , meteorology , biochemistry , chemistry , repressor , transcription factor , financial economics , economics , gene , programming language , operating system
Terracing is an operator that is applied to potential field data to produce regions of constant field amplitude that are separated by sharp boundaries, as an aid to interpretation. When applied to map data, the boundaries are defined by the zero contour of the 2D Laplacian derivative operator. An improved method is described here that defines the boundaries by the zero contour of the profile curvature. This approach gives superior results because the 2D Laplacian operator is composed only of derivatives in the EW and NS directions, while the profile curvature uses the curvature in the ‘uphill’ direction at each point, whatever that direction may be. The method is demonstrated on gravity data from South Africa. Source code in Matlab format is available from the authors on request.