Coast effect distortion of marine magnetotelluric data: Insights from a pilot study offshore northeastern Japan

We report on strong coast effect distortions observed for broadband marine magnetotelluric (MT) data collected on the forearc offshore northeastern Japan. Eight days of horizontal electric and magnetic fields recorded at eight seafloor stations and the horizontal magnetic fields from a land remote station were processed with a robust multiple-station algorithm, yielding good MT responses and inter-station transfer functions at periods of 7–10,000 s. Transverse electric (TE) mode responses have cusps in apparent resistivity and negative phases at periods around 1000 s, while the transverse magnetic (TM) mode responses are galvanically depressed below the TE responses. An analysis of inter-station transfer functions confirms that the apparent resistivity cusps are a magnetic field, rather than electric field, phenomenon, consisting of an amplitude minimum and rapid phase change around a characteristic frequency. Poynting vectors for a TE coast effect model study illustrate that the anomalous phases are associated with energy diffusing back up to the seafloor from below, after being turned around from its usual downward propagating trajectory by inductive coupling between the conductive ocean and the resistive seafloor along the continental margin. We show that the characteristic frequency and position of the TE mode apparent resistivity cusps are determined by a relatively simple combination of the electrical resistivity of the seafloor, the depth of the ocean, and the distance from the coastline. By including coastlines and bathymetry in 2D inversion, we recover the seafloor conductivity structure along the forearc, demonstrating that broadband data can constrain the thickness of conductive forearc sediments and the underlying high resistivity associated with the mantle wedge and subducting oceanic lithosphere.