Application of the tilt angle of the balanced total horizontal derivative fi lter for the interpretation of potential field data

Various fi ltering approaches are used to determine the approximate border of potential fi eld sources buried at different depths. We have developed a new edge detector method to delineate the causative mass limit of potential fi eld anomalies titled “the tilt angle of the balanced total horizontal derivative” (TBHD). In this paper, we suggest using TBHDs in the Euler method instead of potential field derivatives, as prior information about the structural index is not necessary. We have named this method TBHD-EUL. The TBHD and TBHD-EUL methods are examined on synthetic gravity and magnetic anomalies. The estimated results show that both methods can accurately indicate the anomalies edges location for noise-free data, and also attain acceptable results for noise-corrupted data. We applied the TBHD and TBHD-EUL methods to real gravity data from Iran. The horizontal location of the solutions obtained by the TBHD-EUL method lies on the anomalies boundary which the TBHD filter has detected. The solutions from TBHD-EUL are compared with results from the standard Euler deconvolution method. The depth values of the solutions estimated by the TBHD-EUL method show a more limited variation range and better stability of the responses than the solutions of the standard Euler deconvolution method.