Remote Operated Vehicle Geophysical Survey Using Magnetic and VLF Methods: Proposed Schemes for Data Processing and Interpretation

Aircraft geophysical investigations are recognized now as a powerful tool for geological‐geophysical mapping, searching economic minerals, environmental studying, ecological monitoring, etc. Two main reasons limit an effective application of such conventional investigations: (a) essential impediments of performing geophysical surveys at small altitudes, (b) heightened danger for the aircraft crew, especially in the regions with a rugged topography. Remote Operated Vehicles (ROV) are free from the above‐mentioned limitations. The new ROV generation — small and maneuvering vehicles — can fly at levels of few (and even one) meters over the earth's surface (flowing the relief forms) with simultaneous performing geophysical measurements. Besides this, geophysical investigations observed at the vehicles, should have an extremely low exploitation cost (we suggest that the exploitation ratio of ROV / conventional investigations may consist of 1/20). Finally, measurements of geophysical fields at different observation levels could provide new unique geological‐geophysical information. It is proposed that the most prospective geophysical integration for ROV should include measurements of magnetic and VLF electromagnetic fields. GPS (with utilization of the improved wide‐band Kalman filtering) will assure an exact topogeodetic relation for the proposed observations. The nonconventional interpreting system developed for complicated environments may be successfully applied for analysis of the ROV observed geophysical data.