On: “A least-squares approach to depth determination from gravity data”; discussion and reply

Abstract

Abstract In his paper, Gupta was able to transform the problem of depth estimation of buried structures into a problem of finding a solution of a nonlinear equation in the form of f(z) = 0. Gupta also indicated that such a numerical approach is found to be capable of determining optimum depths particularly from residual anomaly profiles even if small segments of the gravity profiles are observed. No doubt this numerical approach has its point of view both in theory and practice over any other depth estimation techniques such as those defined by the half-gmax rule (Nettleton, 1940, 1942; Telford et al., 1976). However, Gupta's technique would be much more effective if applied not to residuals but to derivative anomalies, particularly when the regional field has few extrema in it; this is obviously due to the following.