The Contribution of Potential Field Data Transformations for Enhancing and Interpreting the Structural-Tectonic Setting of the West of Cairo Area, Western Desert, Egypt

By

 Ahmed S.A Abu El-Ata¹, A.A. El-Khafeef²

(1) Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt (2) Petroleum Research Institute, Cairo, Egypt

 Transformations and interpretation tools for the potential field data of West Cairo area, have been carried out, to enhance the configuration of the sedimentary basins, basement and shallower structures. Total intensity aeromagnetic data have been reduced to the magnetic north. Both gravity and magnetic data were edge-enhanced. The directional features of the potential field were enhanced utilizing the sun-shading technique. The particular elevation and azimuth of the sun-shading are very powerful parameters in this filter, where the features laying normal to the sun azimuth are enhanced and the feature parallel are reduced. The geological noises created from dyke anomalies cutting feature of interest have been removed by using the strike filtering transform through the effective steps (enhancement and suppression) and to filter parameters (direction 60^o clockwise from the north and 3 severity levels: 1, 3 & 5 km). The gradient components and the analytical signal transform option have the optimum impact in the processing of the available data. Two-dimensional power spectrum was done to determine the depths to causative magnetic bodies. The magnetic bodies are delineated at two interfaces of 1.2 and 2.9 km depth. Horizontal and total phase angles are calculated on the RTP map at these interfaces to inspect the locations of fault zones and the extension of bodies. Euler deconvolution was applied for the automatic definition of the positions, depths and shapes of the effective bodies, and the structural trends according to the model used (step fault, dyke, sill or contact).