Object orientated focussing of geoelectrical multielectrode measurements

This paper explains two methods to improve the effectiveness of geoelectrical field measurements. First, we present a method to reduce the number of geoelectrical multielectrode measurements of a survey. The reduction is done by an optimisation of the resulting sensitivity distribution of a superposition of different measurements in comparison with a target sensitivity distribution. The differentiation between important and unnecessary measurements is based on the absolute value of weighting factors. Measurements with small weights are neglected. This procedure can achieve savings up to 70% of all data depending on the task and configuration. We demonstrate the application of data reduction for a synthetic model. In the second part of this paper, we present a method for a fast evaluation and interpretation of field data without a time consuming inversion process. The method is based on weighting coefficients calculated by the object orientated focussing procedure. The filter algorithm provides a fast and easy way to decide whether predefined structures are present along the survey line.