Processing of Surface-NMR Data From Sites With High Noise Levels

The applicability of surface NMR in investigations of groundwater is often limited by high noise levels in many areas of interest. In this paper we present measurements from a high noise level area in Ristrup, Denmark. Standard multichannel filtering techniques for noise reduction are inadequate for several data sets acquired in this area and surface-NMR signals cannot be resolved from the acquired data. With a careful assessment of the frequency content of the data, we show how a model-based approach can be used to subtract two harmonic noise components from the data and reliable surface-NMR data can be extracted from the noise-reduced data. Moreover, we show the impact of the proposed processing approaches on the inversion results and also present an example where the proposed methodology allows us to reveal and avoid an otherwise overlooked contamination of the reference coil signals with surface-NMR signal. The results of this study show that a careful processing of the data makes it possible to extract surface-NMR data in more places of interest.