Integrated Interpretation of seismic, FTG and HRAM, southern Mongolia
I’ve spent the last couple of months working alongside Tim Archer (Reid Geophysics) on a project to integrate and interpret seismic, satellite imagery, full tensor gravity gradiometry (FTG) and high-resolution aeromagnetic (HRAM) data from southern Mongolia.
I spent 6 months doing fieldwork in an adjacent block during my PhD in 2004-2005; it’s been very interesting to update my ideas on the area with the benefit of a subsurface dataset and to look at the geology with a focus on hydrocarbon exploration.
The region is incredibly structurally complex but has huge potential. However, unravelling the complex structural history is a major challenge. The region has undergone multiphase Paleozoic to Triassic terrane accretion, ophiolite obduction and terrane reorganisation, Jurassic to Cretaceous intracratonic rifting, and most recently, Oligo-Miocene to Recent transpressional intraplate mountain building.
The project involved both map-view interpretation (to interpolate geological features between seismic lines) and quantitative gravity and magnetic modelling along 2D profiles, to test and refine seismic interpretations of a prospect. Hopefully, we'll get permission to present some of the results at a future conference - watch this space!
