Home – Home – Jornals – Russian Geology and Geophysics 2018 number Неопубликованное

Electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) has numerous applications. The high demand for ERT is stimulating the active development of equipment and technologies, as well as methods for analyzing, processing, and inversion of ERT data. The use of 3D electrode arrays for surveying complex geoelectrical environments is increasing due to the limitations and shortcomings of 2D electrode arrays. 3D electrode arrays often allow for increased spatial resolution and reliability in the inverted models. The advantages of 3D electrode arrays over 2D electrode arrays for ERT surveying often not obvious. Geophysicists often decline the use of 3D electrode arrays for this reason. This paper reviews ERT technologies that use 3D electrode arrays, methods for building of geoelectric models, their advantages and disadvantages. Based on mathematical modeling/inversion of ERT data, the advantages of 3D electrode arrays and the disadvantages of 2D electrode arrays are demonstrated. We conducted analyses of typical distortions in models and systematized them. We presented a simple 3D electrode array optimized for labor and cost, with current and potential electrodes located on adjacent profiles. We showed that models inverted by ERT data with 3D optimized electrode arrays do not have the distortions typical 2D electrode arrays. Thus, using 3D optimized electrode arrays, labor and cost can be reduced for field work without losing the spatial resolution of models inverted by ERT data. This opens the way for active use of the ERT with 3D electrode arrays to explore ore deposits.