Geophysical Signature Location in the South-West of Chad: Structural Implications

Abstract

A study is conducted in South-West of Chad with the goal of underlining the different lineaments of the region, which are entirely or partially hidden by the sedimentary cover. Different gravity data processing techniques including horizontal gradient of vertical derivative coupled with upward continuation and Euler’s de-convolution are used. These methods revealed a number of lineaments describing gravity density discontinuities whose directions are N-S, NE-SW, ENE-WSW, and WNW-ESE at NNW-SSE. However, the predominant direction for major lineaments is WNW-ESE. The major lineaments associated to the faults are: F1, F2, F3, F6, F7, F8, F9, F10, F14, F21, F22, F23, F24 and F28. Euler’s solutions indicate depths up to 9.2 km for the anomaly sources. Such lineaments are very useful for groundwater and oil exploration, but also for risk assessment.