Abstract
Source field effects in magnetotelluric data acquired at high geomagnetic latitudes can result in erroneous interpretations of Earth conductivity structure deep within the mantle. This paper describes a simple technique most appropriate for a region that is dominantly one-dimensional (1-D) and uses the vertical magnetic field variations for identifying intervals of likely low contamination by non-uniform sources. Times are chosen when the variations stay within prescribed limits defined on the basis of a histogram of the variations for the whole recording interval. An example is given showing application of the method for data from a site under the auroral oval at a time when solar activity was at its lowest for the last solar cycle. A model derived from the responses obtained by processing all available data implies a decrease in resistivity at about 350 km to about 100Ω. m. In contrast, the model obtained from low activity interval responses shows a less rapid decrease in resistivity, without a change at around the 410 km phase boundary. The responses obtained from all data can be explained by the influence of a source with an average wavelength of 3, 000 km.
