An integrated geophysical approach for imaging subbasalt sedimentary basins: Case study of Jam River Basin, India

An integrated geophysical strategy comprising deep electrical resistivity and gravity data was devised to image subbasalt sedimentary basins. A 3D gravity inversion was used to determine the basement structure of the Permian sediments underlying the Cretaceous formation of the Jam River Basin in India. The thickness of the Cretaceous formation above the Permian sediments estimated from modeling 60 deep-electric-sounding data points agrees well with drilling information. The gravity effect of mass deficit between the Cretaceous and Permian formations was found using 3D forward modeling and subsequently removed from the Bouguer gravity anomaly along with the regional gravity field. The modified residual gravity field was then subjected to3D inversion to map the variations in depth of the basement beneath the Permian sediments. Inversion of gravity data resulted in two basement ridges, running almost east to west, dividing the basin into three independent depressions. It was found that the Katol and Kondhali...