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Large depth exploration using pulsed radar electromagnetic technology

  • Gordon Stove - Adrok

Atomic Dielectric Resonance (ADR) is a patented investigative technique (Stove, 2005) which involves the measurement and interpretation of resonant energy responses of natural or synthetic materials to the interaction of pulsed electromagnetic radio-waves from materials which permit the applied energy to pass through the material. Radiowaves (typically in the frequency range of 1MHz to 100MHz) are continuously pulsed into the ground from an ADR transmitter antenna and the responses from the ground are gathered at the ground surface by an ADR receiver antenna.

The resonant energy response can be measured in terms of energy, frequency and phase relationships. The precision with which the process can be measured helps define the unique interactive atomic or molecular response behaviour of any specific material, according to the energy bandwidth used. ADR is measurable on a very wide range of hierarchical scales both in time and space. Time scales may range from seconds to femtoseconds, and spatial scales from metres to nanometres. The technology has been applied to help mining and petroleum companies in their search for subsurface natural resources, some of which are described in this contribution.

Significant time and effort was spent on dielectric logging in the 1970’s – 80’s by operators and service companies in the oil industry. Adrok’s ADR scanning technology claims to interact with the subsurface in the same region of the electromagnetic spectrum as dielectric logging, but from surface measurement.

Although available to the market for over five years, ADR technology is viewed with scepticism by industry geophysicists, many of whom erroneously dispute the systems depth penetration based on an incorrect application of the skin depth concept derived from Maxwell’s equations for planar waves in a conductor.

The body of this oral presentation describes in greater detail the technology, field experiments and results to date for a number of subsurface geology mapping case studies.