Three-dimensional modelling in magnetotelluric and magnetic variational sounding

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Abstract
The Galerkin finite element method is used to obtain approximate solutions for the three-dimensional induction problem. A rectangular conductive prism is considered as an example, and solutions are obtained for linear and circularly polarized incident plane wave fields. Magnetotelluric tensor impedances and magnetic transfer functions are computed. Polar diagrams of the tensor impedances and magnetic transfer functions along with their amplitude contour maps are presented. The dimensionality parameter, skew, is contoured at the surface of the Earth. It is shown that the relative amplitudes and shapes of the additional and principal impedance polar diagrams can be used to determine the dimensionality of the geoelectrical structures. Stations with the skew values greater than 0.2 are significantly influenced by the three-dimensionality of the geoelectric structure. The amplitudes of the magnetic transfer function and the orientations of its polar diagrams exhibit large anomalies in the vicinity of the intersection of the lateral contacts.