Remote sensing electric field exploration system

Abstract

An airborne exploration system used with an aircraft for shallow and deep exploration for oil and gas, mineral deposits and aquifers. The survey system uses natural electromagnetic EM fields as an energy source. The exploration system includes a pair of aerodynamic housing pods adapted for mounting on wing tips of the aircraft. The housing pods include electric field sensors with three orthogonal electric dipoles oriented along an X, Y and Z axis. An optional third set of orthogonal electric dipoles can be mounted in the tail of the aircraft. The field sensors are electrically attached to angular motion detectors mounted inside housing pods. The motion detectors are used for compensating for errors caused by angular motion of the aircraft when in the presence of strong electric field gradients. The system also includes a total field magnetometer mounted in the aircraft. The various filtered outputs of the magnetometer are used to provide phase and amplitude references for the similarly filtered and angular motion corrected outputs of the electric field sensors. The electric field data when normalized and phase referenced against the magnetic field data provides valuable geological and geophysical information related to the subsurface flow of telluric currents.