Mapping the near sub-surface is critical to industries within large-scale onshore and offshore constructions and to the green tech raw materials industry in general. Often we need to know whether the subsurface contains hazardous waste, unexploded war remnants (bombs and landmines) or raw materials essential to, e.g. green-transition high-tech industries. The magnetic - and, to some degree, gravity - methods are non-invasive, fast and critical methods widely used to map the near-surface part of Earth’s crust for industrial applications. This course will combine a 2 days field campaign with background theory and technology information. The focus will be on the magnetic method but supplemented by gravity and surface mapping by photogrammetry. We learn about the pros and cons of new drone technologies versus traditional airplane and ground methods for mapping. We also learn about hardware design considerations for drone-based magnetic and gravity solutions, how to conduct drone- and ground-based field campaigns, choice of survey drones, technical-practical requirements for drone-based magnetic and gravity sensors, and the key to positioning your data precisely via GNSS. You will get experience in how to design surveys and acquire data, processing, modelling and analysis of the data, quality assurance of the data, and presentation of data. A selected field area in Denmark or southern Sweden will be used to work with different ground- and drone-borne survey systems (both magnetic, gravity and photogrammetry) and to acquire data for the final report (groups of 3-4 students). The data analyses will be combined with detailed surface information produced by drone-borne photogrammetry during the fieldwork. Exercises will be carried out during the course to demonstrate the methods needed to complete the mandatory report.
