3-D Gravity modeling of basins with vertical prisms: Application to Salt Lake region (Turkey)

Oya Tarhan Bal1* and Ibrahim Kara1

1Istanbul University, Engineering Faculty, Department of Geophysical Engineering, 34320, Avcilar, Istanbul, Turkey

(*tarhan@istanbul.edu.tr)

(Received 25 December 2010; accepted 06 December 2011)


Abstract:  A novel 3D modeling method for interpreting gravity maps over sedimentary basins was successfully applied on synthetic data as well as real data from Salt Lake , Turkey . This method utilizes 3D prisms rather than 2D ones and an optimization technique for the estimation of the block thickness. The Salt Lake sedimentary basin is represented with a series of juxtaposed prisms that exhibit parabolic density contrast and different depth to the bottom of the prism. By fitting a parabolic density contrast function on well log data from the same region, we determined the parameters of this function, in order to interpret the gravity data from Salt Lake . The 3D gravity modeling provided depths to the bottom of the basin by minimizing the difference between calculated and observed gravity data. A depth map of the Salt Lake Basin indicates that the thickness of this sedimentary basin reaches a maximum depth of approximately 7 km.