The potential of potential fields

摘要

A high-resolution airborne magnetic survey will serve as a reconnaissance tool to high-grade prospects offshore Uruguay. Gravity and magnetics can seem a bit like the "flavor of the month" - sometimes the measurements are considered critical for successful exploration and other times ignored or viewed suspiciously by the uneducated. Luckily for companies that acquire these data, potential fields measurements are back in vogue, helped tremendously by technical improvements such as high-resolution aeromagnetics and gravity gradiometry. Many oil and gas companies will acquire a gravity or magnetic survey prior to shooting any seismic to get a general sense of the "lay of the land" with a low-cost geophysical acquisition tool.