Inversion of AEM data to assist exploration strategies in a regolith-dominated terrain: Yilgarn Craton, Western Australia

The conductive regolith present in most of Australia compromises the use of airborne electromagnetic (AEM) data, limiting the method's depth of penetration and its ability to unveil basement mineral anomalies under conductive cover. Here we describe an approach where by incorporating the highly conductive EM response of the 'overburden' rather than avoiding it in the interpretation; we increase the understanding of the cover's architecture and the broader exploration scenario. A better understanding of regolith distribution and stratigraphy has significant impact in the planning of drilling targeting and geochemical interpretation of surface anomalies. Detection of potential mineral targets, data driven geological sections and constrained regolith architecture such as thickness and main stratigraphical units can be achieve by: 1) operating a deep penetrating AEM system such as SPECTREM, 2) applying an inversion algorithm which can simultaneously resolve a same 1D model from X and Z component data and address unknowns around the system's geometry and 3) combining ancillary data,