Forward modelling of geophysical survey data using cylindrical elemental volumes

A simple model is presented for the gravitational field due to a finite cylinder, and this is elaborated so that (in principle) the gravitational field from a body of any shape may be found in terms of the field of such primitive cylinders. The primitive field is described as a moment-expansion in terms of odd-order Legendre polynomials P-2p+1 (cos theta), p=0, 1, 2,..., where theta is the angle between the field point and the cylinder's axis, and in terms of the radial distance R of the field point from the centre of mass of the cylinder, such that the parameters describing the shape of the cylinder, and the field point parameters, are separated. This allows gravitational field modelling calculations to be carried out extremely quickly in the space domain for gravitational sources of any shape. Moreover, the form of the solutions-due to the separation mentioned above-allows a clear insight into the underlying physical mechanisms involved in the synthesis of such fields, making such elements suitable in the solution of inverse gravitational problems in the space domain, as well.