Geophysical Prospecting doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2478.2012.01094.x Robust Error on magnetotelluric impedance estimates

We propose here a new, robust, methodology to estimate the errors on a magnetotel-luric (MT) impedance tensor. This method is developed with the bounded influence remote-reference processing (BIRRP) code in a single site configuration. The error is estimated by reinjecting an electric field residual obtained after the calculation of an impedance tensor into a tensor function calculation procedure. We show using synthetic examples that the error tensor calculated with our method yields a more reliable error estimate than the one calculated from Jackknife statistics. The modulus of realistic error estimates can be used as a quality control and an accurate inversion constraint of MT surveys. Moreover, reliable error estimates are necessary for new applications of MT to dynamic subsurface processes such as reservoir monitoring