Quantitative interpretation of self-potential anomalies in hydrogeological exploration of volcanic areas: a new approach

Hydrogeological exploration of volcanic areas has shown that there is a correlation between the range of a negative self-potential (SP) anomaly and the thickness of the Unsaturated zone measured in boreholes. Based oil this correlation, it is assumed that the SP anomaly is created in an unsaturated medium through which meteoric water moves downwards, and thus an SP anomaly in a polarized medium has been derived analytically. This SP formula can be used in all inverse technique in the wavenumber domain, in which inversion of the SP anomaly is used to calculate the location and depth of ground water. Theoretical models and field examples demonstrate that this method call be used to explore ground water in volcanic areas.