The Earth's Potential Fields

This course gives you in-depth knowledge about the description, measurement and analysis of the Earth's gravitational and magnetic fields with the aim of understanding and mapping out structures and processes in the Earth's interior. Furthermore, the course gives you experience in the use of techniques which are relevant to global problems as well as for regional and local applications. You are introduced to a number of case studies covering anything from the role of satellite measurements in global geodynamic studies over air-borne magnetic field measurements in mineral prospecting to small-scale archaeological studies. The theoretical foundations of gravitational and magnetic field measurements are emphasised. Basic theoretical relationships between force and potential as well as harmonic analysis of local measurements using Fourier components and of global measurements using spherical harmonic functions are studied in the course. Different filtering methods, which are used in harmonic analysis to enhance target signatures, are introduced.