CASE STUDY 1 GRAVITY AND MAGNETIC DATA OF WESTERN DESERT, EGYPT

1. Geology Of Area

Western desert are located at the North Western part of Egypt It is a plateau desert With lots of Rocky
ground and close depressions. The rocks and loose sediments cropping out on the investigated area
belong to the Paleocene, Early Eocene, Middle Eocene, Late Eocene, Oligocene, Early Miocene,
Middle Miocene, Late Miocene and Quaternary.
Rocks are mainly sedimentary in nature but their are little sign of Volcanic rocks Along fault lines.

This case study is only about the processing of gravity and magnetic data not about the acquisition of
data.

Figure 1

2. Available Magnetic And Gravity

Data

Figure 2
Bouguer Gravity map of scale 1 ratio
1000000 is available as shown above
fig2. In the map there are two region
which show strong anomaly at the
centre and the northern part. The
increasing gravity anomaly indicate
that The crust Mantle boundary is
deeper in the southern part than in northern and center part which is due to the presence of more
dense rocks

For the study the aeromagnetic map of 1 ratio 250000 scale and contour interval of 5nT is used. In
map the south part has the most negative magnetic anomaly while in the Northeast part Lots of
positive magnetic anomaly is observed.

3) Processing Of Gravity And Magnetic Map

The processing of gravity and magnetic data includes 10-11 process as follows

1. Reduction to magnetic north pole

2. Polynomial surface fitting enhancement

3. High-pass filtering operation

4. Laplacian operator

5. Strike filtering technique

6. Butterworth Filtering Utilization

7. Butterworth high-pass filter

8. Eulers deconvolution

9. Forward modeling

1) Reduction to magnetic north pole

The magnetic anomaly which we are observing at a point is not exactly the same for the point which
lie exactly below the place There is always the addition of magnetic field from the nearby object. RTP
filtering technique is used to align the peak and gradient of magnetic anomalies directly over their
source .There are many softwares available which perform RTP operations such as geosoft Oasis.

Advantages of RTP tranformed map

In RTP transformed magnetic map the size of anomaly is become larger and centred over
there respective causative bodies to some extent.
Magnetic gradient become more intensive and steeper
Magnetic belts are well cleared and more perfect in the RTP map

Original Magnetic Data RTP transformed data

2) Polynomial surface fitting Enhancement

This technique is used to separate two form of data one is local and another is regional residual map
can be obtained by obtaining the trend surface of area and then subtracting the trend surface from the
original data. In the study area polynomial fitting of 5th order is used to get the residual map of gravity
and magnetic as shown below.
Advantages of polynomial fitting
Local elements are clearly visible with high and low polarity
Map show higher frequencies, sharp configuration and small magnitudes
3) High Pass Filter Operation
This technique is applied on the data set grids by using the PFproc program. The high pass filter is used
to get detail in the smooth map
4) Laplacian Operator
it is used to develop the high pass gravity map. In Laplace transform map anomalies are presented in
spotlight shapes of positive and negative polarities. Anomalies have sharp gradient and relative in
narrow irregular shapes
5) Strike Filtering Technique
Strike filtering technique is useful in removing geological noices, such as dikes which cut the features
across interest. this method selectively suppress anomalies that are preferred as azimuthally oriented

6) Butterworth High pass filter

The Butterworth filter is a type of signal processing filter designed to have as flat a frequency
response as possible in the passband. It is also referred to as a maximally flat magnitude filter
High pass filter gravity map the animal is have elongated and semi circular shape. High pass filter
magnetic map have higher resolution than RTP map
 Original Gravity map High pass filter

Magnetic RTP High pass filter

7) Euler Deconvolution technique

Euler deconvolution technique is a new technique and a powerful technique for the estimation of depth
and geometry of buried sources. Euler deconvolution is a highly automatic technique and generally
used for large data. With the help of Euler deconvolution we can directly determine the depth and the
type of source geometry in the gravity and magnetic data interpretations.This method is used to locate
dykes and contacts with remarkable accuracy The method locate bodies by observing the gradient.
Fig at below gives a fine clue to the nature of the faulting features including their locations and depths.

Deconvolution of gravity
Deconvolution of magnetic

Conclusion
This paper deals with the evaluation of the lithological and tectonic setup of the eastern part of Qattara
Depression, Western Desert, Egypt, from gravity and magnetic data. high-pass filtering is used to
enhance the anomaly wavelengths associated with the shallow sources. Euler Deconvolution is the
best technique for large data