Arab J Geosci (2014) 7:43554359

DOI 10.1007/s12517-013-1110-3

ORIGINAL PAPER

On the depth to anomaly estimation using Karous and Hjelt

filter in VLF-EM data
Mohamed A. Khalil & Fernando M. Santos

Received: 5 February 2013 / Accepted: 10 September 2013 / Published online: 21 September 2013
# Saudi Society for Geosciences 2013

Abstract The Karous and Hjelt filter has been long time used
as a qualitative interpretation of VLF-EM data. It is derived
directly from the concept of magnetic fields associated with
the current flow in the subsurface and resulted in a 2-D cross
section showing the current density distribution at different
depths. Practically, as the distance between measuring points
increases, the total depth of the 2-D current density distribution section increases. Theoretically, the common guide to
estimate the depth of penetration of an electromagnetic wave
is the skin depth, which depends on the frequency of the
electromagnetic wave and the conductivity of the host geological material, regardless of the distance interval between
measuring points. Accordingly, the accuracy of the Karous
and Hjelt filter regarding depth estimation of the anomaly is
tested in this study. We proposed a conductive anomaly in a
definite dimension and depth. The response of this conductive
body is calculated as in-phase and out-of-phase synthetic VLF
data via forward modeling. The synthetic VLF data is filtered
by the Karous and Hjelt filter at 1, 5, and10 m of interval
distance between measuring points. The present study showed
that the Karous and Hjelt filter is characterized by a large
degree of accuracy in depth estimation.

Keywords VLF-EM . Karous and Hjelt filter . Depth

estimation

M. A. Khalil (*) : F. M. Santos

Centro de Geofsica da Universidade de Lisboa-IDL, Universidade
de Lisboa, Campo Grande, Ed. C8, 1749-016 Lisbon, Portugal
e-mail: khalil250@hotmail.com
M. A. Khalil
National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics,
Helwan Cairo, Egypt

Introduction
VLF-EM technique has been widely used in mining exploration (Paal 1965; Paterson and Ronka 1971; Frasheri et al.
1995; Bayrak 2002) because of the large difference in electrical conductivity of the ore body and the host rock. Many
studies are concerned also with underground water exploration (Benson et al. 1997; Powers et al. 1999; Sharma and
Baranwal 2005; Monteiro Santos et al. 2006; Khalil et al.
2009). Some studies tried to utilize VLF-EM in the field of
archeological prospecting for shallow subsurface targets
(Bozzo et al. 1992; Khalil et al. 2010). Others used VLFEM in cave detection and karst studies (Bosch and Mller
2001).
The fundamentals of VLF-EM, in addition to its geological
and hydrogeological applications, can be found in the literature, e.g., McNeill and Labson (1991). The essential principles
of the VLF-EM method are as follows: a primary low frequency electromagnetic field is propagated from many radio
transmitters scattered in different parts of the world, designed
for military communications and navigation. The transmitted
frequency is usually between 15 and 30 kHz. This primary
electromagnetic field of a radio transmitter (vertical electric
dipole) possesses a vertical electric field component (EPz) and
a horizontal magnetic field component (HPy), parallel to the
ground and perpendicular to the propagation direction. At a
distance greater than several free wavelengths from the transmitter, the primary EM field components can be assumed to be
horizontally traveling waves. The primary magnetic field
component (HPy) penetrates into the ground and induces eddy
currents forming a secondary horizontal electric component
(ESx) in buried conductive structures. A secondary magnetic
field (HS) is generated which is out of phase with the primary
magnetic field and of smaller amplitude. The intensity of the
secondary magnetic field depends on the conductivity of the
ground. The interface between the primary and the secondary

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magnetic fields produces a resultant magnetic field which is

elliptically polarized. The orientation of this ellipse is random
but is greatly extended along the direction of the primary field.
This is referred to as the polarization ellipse. The parameters
of interest are (a) the orientation of the minor axis (tilt angle)
of the polarization ellipse and (b) the ratio of the minor to the
major axis of the ellipse (the ellipticity). These two parameters
are equivalent to the in-phase (real) and the out-of-phase
(quadrature) component of the secondary magnetic field, respectively. At each measurement point, it is possible to define
a scalar tipper B given by HSz=B HSy. The tipper is a
complex quantity originated by the time lag between the
horizontal and vertical components of the magnetic fields
due to the electromagnetic induction phenomena. Over a 2D earth, the tipper varies along the measuring profile showing
the strongest variations in the vicinity of resistivity contrasts.
The real and imaginary components of the tipper in the case of
the VLF-EM method are measured as percentage of the primary field. The best advantage of the VLF-EM method is that
no ground contact is needed, which allows a higher speed of
survey.
For practical purposes, it is worth to mention that (1) in
order to optimize the maximum induction effect, the direction
of the transmitter should be selected to coincide with the strike
of the conductive geological body, (2) the VLF-EM profile
should be long enough to cover the conductive anomaly
desired, and (3) VLF-EM devices (receivers) are so designed
that the anomaly indications in the real component, that is, a
positive peak appears ahead of the conductor and a negative
peak appears behind it. This crossover anomaly depends on
the specific direction the receiver operator faces when taking
readings along a traverse. The anomaly profile would be 180
out of-phase if the operator faced the opposite direction when
taking readings across the same conductor. The VLF-EM data
used in the present study is essentially a synthetic data. When
a conductive anomaly in a definite dimension and depth is
proposed, then the response of this conductive body is calculated as in-phase and out-of-phase synthetic VLF data via
forward modeling. The estimated synthetic VLF data is filtered by the Karous and Hjelt filter at 1, 5, and 10 m of interval
distance between measuring points to get the result in the form
of 2-D current density distribution section showing the estimated depth and location of the anomaly. Accordingly, the
comparison between the real depth and the estimated depth by
the Karous and Hjelt filter using different interval distances
between measuring points would be possible.

VLF-EM data processing and interpretation

During the last 50 years, several methods, both analog and
numerical, have been developed by many researchers to interpret the VLF-EM data, and attempts have been made to

Arab J Geosci (2014) 7:43554359

determine the parameters of heterogeneities. Coney (1977)

and Baker and Myers (1979) based their studies principally
on analog models. Fraser (1969) proposed the horizontal
gradient filter. Karous and Hjelt (1983) presented the current
density cross section. Ogilvy and Lee (1991) evaluated the
performance of the Karous filter. Chouteau et al. (1996) used
Maxwells equations to obtain an autoregressive filter to convert the VLF-EM measurements into apparent resistivity data.
One of the mostly used processing techniques for qualitative
interpretation is the Karous and Hjelt filter (1983).
Karous and Hjelt (1977, 1983) proposed a method based
on the principle of discrete filtering, and it gives, as a result,
such apparent current densities at different depths, which
would cause a magnetic field equal to the measurements. They
started with the BiotSavart law to describe the vertical component of the magnetic field arising from a subsurface 2-D
current distribution. Karous and Hjelt used linear filter theory
to solve the integral equation for the current distribution,
assumed to be located in a thin horizontal sheet of varying
current densities, situated everywhere at a depth equal to the
distance between the measurement stations. By selecting data
points at progressively greater distances apart, the behavior of
the current distribution in the assumed sheet, now at progressively greater depths, can be inferred. They determined that
the shortest filter that correctly inverts the field of a single
current line element with an error less than 8 % has the simple
form (Karous and Hjelt 1977, 1983)


Z
I a x=2 0:205 H 2 0:323H 1 1:446H 0
2
1:446H 1 0:323H 2 0:205H 3 I a x=2
1

where Z is the assumed thickness of the current sheet, I a is

the current density, x is the distance between the data points
and also the depth to the current sheet. The values of H 2
through H 3 are the normalized vertical magnetic field anomaly
at each of the six data points. Location of the calculated current
density is beneath the center point of the six data points.
This filter provides a pictorial indication of the depth of the
various current concentrations and hence the spatial dispositions of subsurface geological features, such as mineral veins,
faults, shear zones, and stratigraphic conductors (Ogilvy and
Lee 1991).
The finite Karous and Hjelt discrete filter method is a more
generalized and rigorous form of the Fraser filter (Fraser
1969). However, it is derived directly from the concept of
magnetic fields associated with the current flow in the subsurface and resulted in a 2-D cross section showing the current
density distribution at different depths based on the interval
distance between stations. As the interval distance between
stations decreases, the number of calculated data levels increases and vice versa, where the vertical offset distance

Arab J Geosci (2014) 7:43554359

between data levels equal to the distance between the measurement stations. The present study is a test of the accuracy of
the Karous and Hjelt filter regarding depth estimation of the
anomaly, when VLF data is measured in different interval
distance between stations.
A common guide to the depth of penetration is known as
the skin depth, which is defined as the depth at which the
amplitude of a plane wave has decreased to 1/e or 37 %
relative to its initial amplitude (Sheriff 1991).
The depth of the anomaly estimated from the KarousHjelt
filter is completely a numerical solution and depends on the
interval distance between measuring points. Whereas the skin
depth depends on the frequency of the electromagnetic wave that
is diffused, frequency of transmitter, and the conductivity of the
host material, environment conductivity (McNeill and Labson
1991). Accordingly, the electromagnetic waves of the transmitter,
in a specific frequency, should penetrate the ground, in a specific
resistivity, till reaching the skin depth, supposing that the ground
is isotropic half space and magnetically nonpolarizable, whatever
the distance interval between the measured stations.
Since the resulted depth in the KarousHjelt cross section
is a function of the distance interval between stations, the
Fig. 1 The synthetic data (inphase and out-of-phase) resulted
from the model and the Karous
Hjelt filter cross sections at 1 m
(a), 5 m (b), and 10 m (c) of
interval distance between
measuring stations

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furthest distance can be determined by the following equation

(Reynolds 1997):
1

2= 2 503 f 2
Equation (2) can be simplified to
r

500
f

where

skin depth, in meter

angular frequency=2f, where f stands for frequency in
Hertz, and =3.14
magnetic permeability of free space, 4 107 NA2
conductivity, in Siemens per meter
resistivity in ohm per meter

Forward modeling
To verify the reliability and sensitivity of the proposed approach, the following scheme is carried out: (1) proposing an

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Arab J Geosci (2014) 7:43554359

initial model of a conductive anomaly in a specific geometry,

depth, resistivity, surrounding environmental resistivity, transmitter frequency, and distance interval between stations; (2)
generating the synthetic tipper data (in-phase and out-ofphase) of this anomaly via forward modeling approach; (3)
filtering the synthetic data using the Karous and Hjelt filter in
different distance intervals between stations (1, 5, and 10 m);
and (4) comparing the resulted 2-D current density sections
regarding the depth of the anomaly.

the data is collected every 1 m. According to Eq. (3), the skin

depth of this profile considering the mentioned parameters
should be about 60 m. The Karous and Hjelt filter has applied
upon the synthetic VLF data, proposing that the data was
measured at 1, 5, and 10 m. No significant difference in the
depth to anomaly has been observed in the resulted 2-D
current intensity sections for 1, 5, and 10 m of interval distance
(Fig. 1(ac)). The conductive body is located in the same X
and Y positions in the three sections.

Model 1

Model 2

Figure 1 shows an initial model, containing one conductive

body. The dimensions of this body in X and Y directions are
1020 m, respectively. The body is located between 30 and
50 m in depth. Synthetic data (in-phase and out-of-phase) of
this body is generated by forward approach (Inv2DVLF)
software developed by Monteiro Santos et al. (2006), proposing that the resistivity of the body is 10 m, environmental
resistivity is 300 m, transmitter frequency is 21.7 kHz, and

Figure 2 shows an initial model, containing one conductive

body. The dimensions of this body in X and Y directions are
1020 m, respectively. The body is located between 40 and
60 m in depth. Synthetic data (in-phase and out-of-phase) of
this body is generated by forward approach, proposing that the
resistivity of the body is 10 m, environmental resistivity is
400 m, transmitter frequency is 18 kHz, and the data is
collected every 1 m. The skin depth of this profile considering

Fig. 2 The synthetic data (inphase and out-of-phase) resulted

from the model and the Karous
Hjelt filter cross sections at 1 m
(a), 5 m (b), and 10 m (c) of
interval distance between
measuring stations

Arab J Geosci (2014) 7:43554359

the environmental resistivity and transmitter frequency should

be 74.5 m in depth. Figure 2(ac) shows the current density
pseudo-section resulted from the KarousHjelt filter. The
conductive body is located in the same X and Y positions
regardless of the interval distance between measuring points.

Conclusion
The present study is an approach for quantitative application of
the Karous and Hjelt filter (1983), in particular, the depth estimation of the anomaly body. The depth estimated from the filter
is completely a numerical solution based on the distance interval
between the measured stations. The depth of penetration of
electromagnetic waves depends on the frequency of the inducted
electromagnetic wave and the conductivity of the host rock.
It begins by (1) proposing an initial model in specific
conditions, regarding geometry, depth, resistivity, surrounding
environmental resistivity, transmitter frequency, and distance
interval between station; (2) generating the synthetic tipper
data (in-phase and out-of-phase) of this anomaly via forward
modeling approach; (3) filtering the synthetic data using the
Karous and Hjelt filter in different distance intervals between
stations (1, 5, and 10 m); and (4) comparing the resulted 2-D
current density sections regarding the depth of the anomaly.
The present study shows a large degree of accuracy in the
depth to anomaly estimated by the Karous and Hjelt filter
regardless of the distance interval between measuring stations.
Acknowledgments The corresponding author is indebted to the
Fundao para a Cincia e a Tecnologia (Portugal) for his support through
the postdoctoral fellowship (SFRH\BPD\29971/2006). This work was
partly developed in the scope of the scientific cooperation agreement
between the CGUL and the NRIAG.

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