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The Role of Electrical Anisotropy in Magnetotelluric Responses: From Modelling and Dimensionality Analysis to Inversion and Interpretation

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Abstract

The study of electrical anisotropy in the Earth, defined as the electrical conductivity varying with orientation, has experienced important advances in the last years regarding the investigation of its origins, how to identify and model it, and how it can be related to other parameters, such as seismic and mechanical anisotropy. This paper provides a theoretical background and a review of the current state of the art of electrical anisotropy using electromagnetic methods in the frequency domain, focusing mainly on magnetotellurics. The aspects that will be considered are the modelling of the electromagnetic fields with anisotropic structures, the analysis of their responses to identify these structures, and how to properly use these responses in inversion and interpretation. Also, an update on the most recent case studies involving anisotropy is provided.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the Program Committee of the 21 EMIW for the opportunity to present this review. It would not have been possible without the collaboration, encouragement, and discussions with other colleagues, and those who kindly let me use their materials for the review. I would like to thank mainly Josef Pek and my colleagues at the EXES group in the Universitat de Barcelona, particularly Pilar Queralt and Juanjo Ledo. I wrote most of this review during my stay at Geomar, Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, Germany. For that I thank Marion Jegen and the people in the Marine EM group for the facilities offered and the useful discussions and to Grant George Buffett for copy editing. I thank the Workshop Financial Committee, the project PIERCO2 (CGL2009-07604) and the Facultat de Geologia of the University of Barcelona for the financial support to attend the workshop. Finally, I would like to thank the editor Graham Heinson, an anonymous referee, and especially Alan G Jones who greatly helped to improve the paper.

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  1. Departament de Geodinàmica i Geofísica, Facultat de Geologia, Geomodels Research Institute, Universitat de Barcelona, C/Martí Franquès s/n, 08028, Barcelona, Spain

    Anna Martí

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Martí, A. The Role of Electrical Anisotropy in Magnetotelluric Responses: From Modelling and Dimensionality Analysis to Inversion and Interpretation. Surv Geophys 35, 179–218 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10712-013-9233-3

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