Aeromagnetic signature analysis of Gasus area and its surrounding, central eastern desert, Egypt

This study presents analysis and interpretation of aeromagnetic data to construct subsurface structure maps and determine the depths to magnetic basement. Subsequent analysis steps are applied to the total magnetic intensity (TMI) data. These steps include Reduction to the Pole (RTP) map that was derived from the TMI map then subjected to spectral frequency analysis to isolate RTP map into high and low frequencies and determine pseudo-depth for each map from power spectrum in which there were two main average levels (interfaces) at depth 1.3 and 0.7 km for the deep-seated and near-surface magnetic structures, respectively. 3D Euler deconvolution technique is applied to calculate the depth to the magnetic contacts; the results show clustering of solutions, the shallow solutions are related to the outcrops less than 80 m from flight level, and the solutions which are related to sedimentary cover locations (Um al-Huweitat, Wasif, and Mohamed Rabah basins) are ranged between 200 and to more than 1100 m. Moreover, anomaly enhancement techniques such as tilt derivative (TD), horizontal tilt derivative (TDX), and source edge detect (SED) are applied to enhance shallow features, and determining structure element boundary for both shallow- and deep-seated anomalies and revealing possible faults such as 2D forward modeling are applied to selected profiles to adjust the interpreted structures and map the boundaries and basement relief of the three basins (Mohammed Rabah, Wasif, and Um al-Huweitat). The analysis shows that the study area is affected with network of dip–slip faults due to high shearing and compression stress which formed grabens and horsts at different depth levels in the study area. The trends of predominant faults related to deep-seated structures are NW–SE with depths ranged between 1 and 1.4 km and in regard to the shallow-seated structure, the predominant fault trends are NW–SE, NNW–SSE, and NNE–SSW with depths ranged between 0.3 and 0.8 km.