Potential data and basic mathematical modeling

Potential exploration methods aim at locating geothermal resources and water reservoirs, minerals, faults, and/or petroleum resources. Potential field surveys for detecting geothermal resources are relatively cheap, non-invasive, and non-destructive environmentally speaking. They are passive, i. e., no energy needs to be put into the ground in order to acquire exploration data. The portable instruments (gravimeter and magnetometer) also permit walking traverses. So, the goal of studying potential fields is to provide a better understanding of the subsurface geology under low(er) expenses. However, gravity and magnetic prospecting are affected by the fact that the measured signal is a composite of the contributions from all depths. In fact, the uniqueness problem in gravimetry and magnetometry is the most serious obstacle, when only terrestrial data are obtainable. As a consequence, superpositions over all depths can only be separated suitably, if additional information is available, e. g., from earlier geologic campaigns or borehole activities. Moreover, innovative decorrelation methodologies of the geologic layers are inevitable.