Incorporating Topography into 2D Resistivity Modeling by Using Finite-element and Finite Difference Approaches

In this study, we examine the topographic effect in two-dimensional dc resistivity forward solution. A new modeling algorithm is developed which is capable of solving Poisson’s equation by using finite-difference (FD) and finite-element (FE) approaches. In this algorithm, topography can be incorporated into the model by using three different methods with FE approach and by using two different methods with FD approach. We compared these various methods on different models of surface geometry and resistivity distribution regarding their accuracy and CPU time.