3-D Marine CSEM Forward Modeling in Anisotropic Media Using a Space-Wavenumber Domain Integral Equation Method

The marine controlled-source electromagnetic (MCSEM) method is widely used in offshore oil and gas exploration. In this letter, we present a space-wavenumber domain integral equation (IE) algorithm for simulating marine CSEM responses in 3-D arbitrarily anisotropic media. The algorithm employs a space-wavenumber domain method and a contraction operator in 3-D IEs. The space-wavenumber domain method accelerates simulation speed and reduces memory requirements, while the contraction operator ensures solution convergence. Synthetic models are used to verify the accuracy and efficiency of the newly proposed method by comparing it with an edge-based finite element (FE) method, a space-wavenumber domain differential equation method, and a biconjugate gradient FFT (BCGS-FFT) method. The numerical results of the disk model demonstrate that the marine electromagnetic (EM) fields are significantly influenced by the anisotropic conductivity tensor.