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Determination of reactivated regions and faults in the Iraq Southern Desert with the new edge technique, Inverse Tilt Angle of Second-gradients (ITAS)

  • Research Article - Applied Geophysics
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Abstract

A well-known and essential task in magnetic data interpretation is the structural mapping of basement terranes. Useful tools for analyzing the deep basement are edge-detection filters that normalize the first-/second-order gradients of the magnetic field in three spatial directions. Different edge-detection filters can reveal different structures; for example, filters that normally involve higher-order gradients may detect small-scale magnetic sources. This study aims to define magnetic bodies and interpret intra-basement structures from aeromagnetic data. For this purpose, we utilize three commonly used edge-detection filters that show edges as peaks, which can sometimes be quite broad. In addition, we suggest a new high-resolution filter that shows edges as a sharp crossover. The filters have been tested on the Bishop magnetic model and real airborne magnetic data from the Iraq Southern Desert (SD). Comparing the products of the proposed crossover filter with the three common filters shows similar high-resolution products, but the new filter can often highlight both shallow and deep subtle basement fabric. Our study of the SD magnetic dataset defined older reactivated regions, structural elements, and the trends of intra-basement fractures associated with more recent seismic events.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the Iraq Geological Survey (GEOSURV) for providing the magnetic data. We acknowledge Ed. K. Biegert (researcher, USA) for reading the manuscript and his comments/suggestions that improved the work. We also thank Dr. Rao Yalamanchili (RGS, USA) and the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions on the manuscript.

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geology, College of Science, University of Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq

    Hayder Adnan Al-Bahadily & Ali Maki Al-Rahim

  2. Iraq Geological Survey (GEOSURV), Baghdad, Iraq

    Hayder Adnan Al-Bahadily

  3. Harquail School of Earth Sciences, Laurentian University, Sudbury, ON, P3E 2C6, Canada

    Richard Stuart Smith

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  1. Hayder Adnan Al-Bahadily
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  2. Ali Maki Al-Rahim
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Correspondence to Hayder Adnan Al-Bahadily.

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Edited by Prof. Bogdan Mihai Niculescu (ASSOCIATE EDITOR) / Prof. Gabriela Fernandez Viejo (CO-EDITOR-IN-CHIEF).

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Al-Bahadily, H.A., Al-Rahim, A.M. & Smith, R.S. Determination of reactivated regions and faults in the Iraq Southern Desert with the new edge technique, Inverse Tilt Angle of Second-gradients (ITAS). Acta Geophys. 72, 1675–1692 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11600-023-01176-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11600-023-01176-4

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