Within the broad spectrum of the contemporary earth sciences, there is a continuing trend to overlap and interrelate. Exploration geophysics plays a major role in the areas of mineral and petroleum exploration, marine geology, groundwater exploration, and engineering construction, wherein its primary aim is to add an extra dimension to geological information. In its basic essentials it is a method of geological exploration , using instruments whose function is to record changes in the physical properties of rocks in the subsurface. It therefore involves the application of principles of several physical sciences and relates to the measurement of rock properties such as density, velocity, susceptibility, and resistivity and involves the drawing of deductions about the rock types and their geological configurations. There is also some prediction involved in terms of inferring the probability of the presence of mineral deposits, hydrocarbons, and groundwater.
As a general definition, geophysics...
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Wren, A.E. (1988). Exploration geophysics . In: General Geology. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-30844-X_27
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-30844-X_27
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