A PRESENTATION OF MAGNETOTELLURIC IMPEDANCE TENSOR

Abstract

Through a variation of the classical formulation of a matrix, it is shown that in general there exist two, and only two, polarization states for which the electric and magnetic fields have the same polarization at perpendicular orientations. For each eigenstate the magnetic and electric fields are related by a scalar, the eigenvalue for that state. This scalar relationship between fields is of identical form to the solution for transverse electromagnetric waves in a homogeneous medium and thus provides a physically more satisfactory basic for defining apparent resistivity than the conventional approach using the offdiagonal elements of the coordinate-rotated impedance tensor.