The author reworks his total current conductivity function introduced in a
previous paper, related to electrical polarization of rocks in the frequenc
y range of 1 MHz to 10(-3) Hz. The original five parameters in this functio
n are replaced by new ones. which from the beginning have cleat petrophysic
al and electrochemical meanings and well-defined ranges of variation. Some
classical models are derived as particular cases of it. The main existing m
odels proposed to describe induced polarization (IP) are analyzed, and most
of them are grouped together under a common circuit analog representation
and a respective generating function. A circuit analog is assigned to each
model. The multi-Cole-Cole model circuit analog reveals intrinsic constrain
ts involving the values of its circuit elements. Because of these constrain
t relations and the relaxation times ratio (tau(1)/tau(2))-usually many ord
ers of magnitude from unity-the model has no physical validation to represe
nt single-phase material systems tin the sense of the polarization). The pe
rformance and analysis of the various models to describe a few well-selecte
d experimental data show that only two of the models, the multi-Cole-Cole a
nd Dias models, can provide a function structure capable of fitting these d
ata. This fact, the associated petrophysical interpretation consistency, an
d the basic characteristics of these two models, such as the way they were
derived (empirically, the former; phenomenologically, the latter) and the n
umber of coefficients in the function (directly related to the degree of am
biguity of their determination), make the author's model attractive and pro
mising.