OpenEM: Large-scale multi-structural 3D datasets for electromagnetic methods
This addresses a critical bottleneck for researchers in geophysics and EM exploration by providing a comprehensive public dataset to accelerate deep learning applications, though it is incremental as it builds on existing data needs.
The paper tackles the lack of standardized 3D datasets for deep learning in electromagnetic (EM) methods by presenting OpenEM, a large-scale, multi-structural 3D geoelectric dataset with nine categories of geologically plausible models, and it includes a deep learning-based fast forward modeling approach to enable efficient processing.
With the remarkable success of deep learning, applying such techniques to EM methods has emerged as a promising research direction to overcome the limitations of conventional approaches. The effectiveness of deep learning methods depends heavily on the quality of datasets, which directly influences model performance and generalization ability. Existing application studies often construct datasets from random one-dimensional or structurally simple three-dimensional models, which fail to represent the complexity of real geological environments. Furthermore, the absence of standardized, publicly available three-dimensional geoelectric datasets continues to hinder progress in deep learning based EM exploration. To address these limitations, we present OpenEM, a large scale, multi structural three dimensional geoelectric dataset that encompasses a broad range of geologically plausible subsurface structures. OpenEM consists of nine categories of geoelectric models, spanning from simple configurations with anomalous bodies in half space to more complex structures such as flat layers, folded layers, flat faults, curved faults, and their corresponding variants with anomalous bodies. Since three-dimensional forward modeling in electromagnetics is extremely time-consuming, we further developed a deep learning based fast forward modeling approach for OpenEM, enabling efficient and reliable forward modeling across the entire dataset. This capability allows OpenEM to be rapidly deployed for a wide range of tasks. OpenEM provides a unified, comprehensive, and large-scale dataset for common EM exploration systems to accelerate the application of deep learning in electromagnetic methods. The complete dataset, along with the forward modeling codes and trained models, is publicly available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17141981.