Final Report - Geoscience BC

2. What is Measured?Measured physical rock property data are a means of linking geophysical surveys to subsurfacegeology. The advent of forward modeling and inversion of geophysical data along with theability to rapidly compute large amounts of data on desktop computers now enables us tonumerically modify geophysical data in 3D that approximates the geometry of geological bodies.To inform these computer models it is important to redraw geological maps and cross-sections interms of the geophysical properties of the geological units. These geological – geophysicalreference maps should be simplified to emphasize units with distinct densities and / or magneticproperties and boundaries with physical contrasts. Other parameters such as resistivity,conductivity and chargeability may be mappable parameters. Direct rock property measurementsof this type of data are less available. Reference maps can then guide the computer models toselect a forward model or inversion that best fits the geology.Solutions for forward models and inversions of geophysical data are non-unique, in other wordsseveral geological geometries can explain a geophysical anomaly. Preferred geometric solutionscan be identified by preparing a likely geological geometry that corresponds to the knowndistribution of physical rock properties for rock units. Data for density and magneticsusceptibility are more commonly measured and available. Also inversions for gravity (densitycontrasts) and magnetics are more easily computable with existing codes. Rock property data forresistivity, chargeability and conductivity are less commonly measured. Also the computing timeand complexity for electrical properties and conductivity are a greater challenge. Geophysicalcontract companies do provide these services however.Sulphide geochemical analyses can be used as a proxy for chargeability. Electrical conductivityof samples can be directly measured in laboratories. Density is commonly measured by retrievalof a rock sample and measurement by weight in air – weight in water technique. An alternativeindirect measurement of relative density is by borehole measurement of gamma-gamma andmise-a –la-masse. It is also common to measure seismic velocities and acoustic properties ofrocks. Spectral gamma logs are means of correlation of rock units with radiometric surveys.Field spectral measurements are used to constrain airborne gamma spectral surveys. Table 1 listsa number of physical properties that are measured.3