Unsolved Problems in Near Surface Geophysics

[AryaKimiaghalam]

Hi everyone,

In the past when I was doing my undergrad in physics, I sometimes looked at this page for inspiration in research. However, I was unable to find a similar one for applied geophysics.

Currently, my area of research is exploration non-seismic geophysics, where the focus is on near surface phenomena. I know that in the past century, physics-based methods such as gravimetry, magnetics, time and frequency domain electromagnetics, self potential (SP) and Induced Polarization (IP) have been developed and successfully used for mineral exploration.However when I speak to people in the field, they argue that there is "no juice to be squeezed" and that the probability of a new method emerging is next to none. Apparently the current focus is rather on data integration from the existing methods, with most using AI for that purpose. It is hard to agree with this, since it could imply that applied geophysics is a dead-end subfield of physics.

My question to the community, particularly those who worked with or studied geophysics is the following: What are some unsolved problems in applied geophysics in your opinion? Is there potential for the emergence of a new physics-based method (e.g., IP and SP)? Or rather, is there potential for applying new physics to develop novel geophysical measurement techniques ?(e.g., building better magnetometers).

Very curious to know your thoughts!
Thanks.

 

[Bystander]

https://www2.csr.utexas.edu/grace/ and https://gracefo.jpl.nasa.gov/ ?

 

[Baluncore]

What are some unsolved problems in applied geophysics in your opinion?

How have the tools changed, and what will, or has now, become possible?

Numerical computation certainly supports seismic. But what other wave analysis is possible?

Autonomous drones can gather more data, faster, at lower cost.
What could they measure?
What about IR at night?

 

[peter demessong]

Hi everyone,

In the past when I was doing my undergrad in physics, I sometimes looked at this page for inspiration in research. However, I was unable to find a similar one for applied geophysics.

Currently, my area of research is exploration non-seismic geophysics, where the focus is on near surface phenomena. I know that in the past century, physics-based methods such as gravimetry, magnetics, time and frequency domain electromagnetics, self potential (SP) and Induced Polarization (IP) have been developed and successfully used for mineral exploration.However when I speak to people in the field, they argue that there is "no juice to be squeezed" and that the probability of a new method emerging is next to none. Apparently the current focus is rather on data integration from the existing methods, with most using AI for that purpose. It is hard to agree with this, since it could imply that applied geophysics is a dead-end subfield of physics.

My question to the community, particularly those who worked with or studied geophysics is the following: What are some unsolved problems in applied geophysics in your opinion? Is there potential for the emergence of a new physics-based method (e.g., IP and SP)? Or rather, is there potential for applying new physics to develop novel geophysical measurement techniques ?(e.g., building better magnetometers).

Very curious to know your thoughts!
Thanks.

I'm geophycian like you i think that there are a lot of things that we cqn do to improve our field, you know that about exploration of mineral ressources, we usually use two or three method to explore one mineral because we thing that one method can't dit this word , the question is why not?? it's our work to find how we can use one method to explore efficiently one specific mineral, and i also thing we can create another method of exploration

 

[Baluncore]

... it's our work to find how we can use one method to explore efficiently one specific mineral, and I also think we can create another method of exploration.

Mineral exploration is multidimensional. You need petrology, geochemical, and structural geology, with geomorphology, to identify domains where the preconditions are present that might locate an economic orebody.

The range of techniques available for mineral exploration, will probably grow, but new techniques will never be used in isolation, they will always follow earlier results, that have previously classified the geological landscape. It is most unlikely that an exploration geologist would discard useful data that could narrow the search area, reduce the cost of the survey, and speed the return on investment.