GEOPHYSICS, VOL. 68, NO. 6 (NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2003); P. 19171921, 5 FIGS.

10.1190/1.1635045
A new method for continuation of 3D potential elds to a horizontal plane
Shi-zhe Xu

, Chieh-Hou Yang

, Shikun Dai

, and Dahai Zhang

ABSTRACT
A 3D potential on a 3D topography is approximately
regardedas a potential onanimaginary horizontal plane.
Afast Fourier transform(FFT) is appliedtocalculate the
outward normal derivative of the potential on the hori-
zontal plane. An approximation can be made such that
the calculated derivative is used as the outward normal
derivativeof thepotential onthe3Dtopographic surface.
Based on the potential and the approximated normal
derivative on the topography, Greens formula is used to
obtain the potential at an arbitrary point above the to-
pography. When the potential at a at level above the to-
pography is obtained, an FFT is used again to determine
the potential at other levels above the source of the
potential.
A model test shows that the results from this method
compare well with analytic solutions. The method has
high computation speed and can be used for continua-
tion of 3D potential elds for large data sets, e.g., aero-
magnetic data.
INTRODUCTION
Gravity and magnetic data are usually measured on an ir-
regular surface. Since most approaches available for quantita-
tive analysis require data on a horizontal plane, it is desirable
to recalculate the measured data on a new horizontal plane,
which is called continuation (or reduction) of the potential
eld. Among existing methods for continuation of 3D po-
tential elds are the equivalent source method and the har-
monic series method. Dampney (1969), Syberg (1972), and
Emilia (1973) determine an equivalent source by solving a sys-
tem of linear equations. Henderson and Cordell (1971) dis-
cuss an approach to reduction by means of nite harmonic
series. Bhattacharyya and Chan (1977) calculate an equivalent
source by solving a Fredholm integral equation of the second
Manuscript received by the Editor February 8, 2001; revised manuscript received March 2, 2003.

Zhejiang University, Department of Geosciences, Hangzhou 310027, China. E-mail: szxu@mail.hz.zj.cn.

Formerly National Central University, Institute of Applied Geology, Chungli, Taiwan; presently Ching Yun Institute of Technology, Taiwan. E-mail:
president@cyit.edu.tw.

Petroleum University, Department of Geosciences, Beijing 102200, China. E-mail: ddd505@sino.com.

c 2003 Society of Exploration Geophysicists. All rights reserved.
kind. Pilkington and Urquhart (1990) determine an equiva-
lent source on a mirror image of the observation surface. Xia
et al. (1993) developa methodusing equivalent point sources in
the frequency domain. Ivan (1994) uses the equivalent source
method to upward-continue potential eld data froma polyhe-
dral surface. Typically, these methods solve a large set of linear
algebraic equations, taking a correspondingly large amount of
computer memory. In this paper we present a faster model
that does not require solving algebraic equations. It possesses
a high computation speed as well as reasonable accuracy. The
method can be used in cases involving vast data quantities, such
as aeromagnetic data processing.
Incidentally, the continuation of potential elds in magnetic
exploration is sometimes called terrain correction. But the
common calculation of terrain corrections for the Bouguer re-
duction of gravity data is not continuation.
PRINCIPLE
The integral formula
Let
s
be the topographic surface and

the boundary at
innity;
s
and

form a closed boundary of a source-free re-

gion (Figure 1). According to Greens formula, the potential
u
p
at an arbitrary point p in the region can be expressed by an
integral of the potential u and its outward normal derivative
u/n on the closed boundary:
u
p
=
_

S
+
_
u

n

u
n
_
d, (1)
where is thefundamental solutionof the3DLaplaceequation
[ =1/(4r)], with r being the distance from p to an arbitrary
point and n the outward normal at the boundary. Assume that
the eld source is nite and is centered at point o (Figure 1).
Because the boundary

is far from o, the potential at

is
inversely proportional to the distance from o to the boundary,
i.e., on

the source appears as a point source, so it is easy

to prove that the integral over

is equal to zero (Xu, 2001).

1917
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1918 Xu et al.
Finally, we have
u
p
=
_
s
_
u

n

u
n
_
d
=
_
s
_
u
cos(r, n)
4r
2
+
u
n
1
4r
_
d, (2)
wherecos (r, n) is cosineof theanglebetweenr andtheoutward
normal n to the boundary.
Equation (2) shows that if u and u/n on
s
are known, we
can obtain u above
s
using an integral method. In effect, how-
ever, onlyu on
s
is known, whileu/n is unknown. Therefore,
the key to this problem is to determine u/n on
s
. We pro-
pose a fast approximate method for calculating u/n, which
is computationally much more efcient than solving a set of
linear algebraic equations.
The normal derivative
Modeling (see below) indicates that, if the terrain slope is
less than 30

, we can use the following approximate method

to get the normal derivative. We approximately regard the 3D
potential u(x, y, z) as a potential on an imaginary horizontal
plane, z =constant. The vertical derivative u/z at the imagi-
nary plane can be easily calculated using FFT. Let U(k
x
, k
y
, z)
be the Fourier transform of u(x, y, z):
U(k
x
, k
y
, z) = F[u(x, y, z)],
where k
x
and k
y
are wavenumbers in the x- and y-directions
respectively. Therefore, the vertical derivative u/z on the
imaginary plane is given by
u
z
= F
1
_
_
k
2
x
+k
2
y
U(k
x
, k
y
, z)
_
. (3)
The value of u/z is irrelevant to the height of the imaginary
horizontal plane. Equation (3) takes little time to calculate on
a digital computer.
We can now approximate u/n at the surface
s
by taking
the value of u/z at the point with the same x and y on the
imaginary plane. For the plane z =constant, the normal is par-
FIG. 1. The region, boundary, and potential source.
allel to the z-axis, unlike normal to the terrain
s
. Thus, the
values of u/n on
s
obtained in this way are approximate.
If the terrain slope is larger than 30

, the greater error of the

approximate u/n will lead to a greater error of the contin-
ued values of u. Substituting the above into equation (2), we
can determine the potential u at an arbitrary point p above the
topography. The integral in equation (2) is calculated numeri-
cally.
Numerical integral
Divide the topography
s
into many small triangles
e
. The
integral over
s
in equation (2) can now be decomposed into
a sum of integrals over each triangle. At point p, equation (2)
is rewritten as
u
p
=

s
_
e
_
u
cos(r, n)
4r
2
+
u
n
1
4r
_
d. (4)
The integral over element
e
can be calculated easily using the
Gaussian numerical integration method (Xu, 2001).
Downward continuation
After u is thus obtained on a horizontal plane above the
topography, we can use a conventional FFT to downward con-
tinue u to another plane above the source of the potential.
MODEL TEST
Figure 2a shows the contours of an articial circular hill with
a top height of 160 m at its peak and a maximum slope of
30

. Figure 2b shows the contours of the magnetic anomaly Z

on the topography, which is caused by a magnetic dipole lo-
cated at cross-section BB

(Figure 2f). The pattern of the mag-

netic anomaly in Figure 2b is distorted by the terrain. Because
Z =u/z and
2
u =0, where u is the magnetic potential,
we have
2
Z =0, where
2
is the 3D Laplacian. Thus, Z is a
potential eld, and we can use the proposed method to correct
it for terrain. First, we obtain the normal derivative Z/n.
Figure 2c shows Z/n on the topography computed analyt-
ically. Figure 2d is the approximate Z/n calculated by the
proposed method. The contour patterns in Figures 2c and 2d
are very similar: Figure 2e gives the difference. The error near
the maximum Z/n is about 10%.
Using the proposed method, we continue the magnetic
anomaly Z at the topographic surface shown in Figure 2b to
a at plane with a height of 180 m; the contours are shown
in Figure 3b. Figure 3a shows the analytic magnetic anomaly
Z on the same plane, and Figure 3c gives the difference be-
tween the analytic and the continued results. The error near
the maximum Z is about 4%.
We use conventional FFT to downward continue the mag-
netic anomaly Z. Curve A
1
A

1
in Figure 4a shows the topog-
raphy along prole AA

of Figure 2a, and the horizontal lines

A
3
A

3
(height =180 m) and A
2
A

2
(height =140 m) represent
the height of two planes to which the potential is to be con-
tinued. Figure 4d is the analytic value of eld Z along A
1
A

1
.
Figure 4bshows the comparisonbetweenthe analytic Z andthe
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Continuation of 3D Potential 1919
FIG. 2. Comparison between analytic and approximate normal derivates of potential. (a) The contours (m) of an articial circular
hill 160 mhigh with a maximumslope of 30

. (b) The contours (nT) of the magnetic anomaly Z on the topography, which is caused by
a magnetic dipole located at cross-section BB

[see (f)]. (c) The analytic normal derivative Z/n (nT/m) on the topography. (d) The
approximate Z/n (nT/m) calculated by the proposed method. (e) The difference between the analytic and the approximate Z/n
(nT/m). (f) The location of the magnetic dipole.
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1920 Xu et al.
FIG. 3. Comparison between the analytic Z and the continued Z. The magnetic dipole located at cross-section BB

[see (f)]. (a) The

analytic magnetic anomaly Z (nT) at a plane at the 180-m level. (b) The continued magnetic anomaly Z (nT) at the same plane.
(c) The difference between the analytic Z and the continued Z (nT).
continued Z on A
3
A

3
. After the continued Z at the horizontal
plane A
3
A

3
is obtained, we use an FFT to downward continue
Z onto A
2
A

2
. Figure 4c shows the comparison between the
analytic Z and the continued Z along A
2
A

2
.
From the above test, we can see that the proposed terrain
correction method for 3D potential elds has a satisfactory
accuracy for practical purposes.
CASE STUDY
Figure 5 shows a real example of aeromagnetic data. The
ight altitude ranges from 26 to 340 m. Figure 5a shows
the contours of the ight altitude; Figure 5b shows the con-
tours of the corresponding measured magnetic eld T, which
is a potential eld. Figure 5c shows the continued magnetic
eld to a plane of height 350 m, well above the hill crest
in the topography; Figure 5d shows the downward continu-
ation of the magnetic eld from the plane of 350 m to one
at 200 m. From Figures 5c and 5d, we can see that the pat-
terns of the continued magnetic anomaly are more regular
than the original one in Figure 5b and therefore are easier to
interpret.
CONCLUSION
As demonstrated by a model test and an aeromagnetic
application, the proposed method for terrain correction of 3D
potential elds has sufcient accuracy for practical purposes.
Since this method uses the FFT and does not require solution
of linear algebraic equations, it achieves high computational
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Continuation of 3D Potential 1921
FIG. 4. Prole showing the results of upward and downward
continuation. (a) Curve A
1
A

1
is the topographic line along
prole AA

(see Figure 3a), and the horizontal lines A

3
A

3
(height =180 m) and A
2
A

2
(height =140 m) represent the
height of two planes to which the potential is to be continued.
(b) The comparison between the analytic Z and the contin-
ued Z on A
3
A

3
. (c) The comparison between the analytic Z
and the continued Z on A
2
A

2
. (d) The analytic value of Z on
topographic line A
1
A

1
.
FIG. 5. Case studyterrain correction of aeromagnetic data. (a) The contours of the ight altitude (m). (b) The magnetic anomaly
T (nT) measured at the ight altitude. (c) The magnetic anomaly T (nT) continued from (b) to the plane with height =350 m.
(d)The magnetic anomaly (nT) continued from (c) to the plane with height =200 m.
speed. It takes about 30 s to continue 5000 potential values on a
Pentium III 500-MHz PC; therefore, this method is well suited
to terrain correction with large amounts of data, such as with
an aeromagnetic survey.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors thank the Science and Technology Department
of Zhejiang province, China, for nancial support during the
course of the work. In particular, we are grateful to the assis-
tant editor, P. Docherty, and the associate editor, J. Peirce, for
their very useful suggestions which improved the clarity of this
paper.
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