The invention discloses a remote reference magnetotelluric impedance calculation method based on correlation detection, and belongs to the field of geophysical exploration, for overcoming the 
disadvantage of low accuracy of conventional magnetotelluric 
tensor impedance calculation. The method comprises the following steps: electric fields and magnetic fields of a 
base station and a reference 
station are respectively acquired, processed and obtained, 
electromagnetic field coherence degrees of the 
base station and the reference 
station are respectively calculated, when the two 
electromagnetic field coherence degrees are greater than a certain threshold, data segments are reserved and marked, and data segments, free from non-relevant 
noise interference, of the 
base station and the reference 
station are obtained; and then, 
magnetic field component coherence degrees of the base station and the reference station with the marked data segments are calculated, when the 
magnetic field component coherence degrees are greater than a certain threshold, data segments, free from 
noise interference, of these magnetic fields are reserved, otherwise, the data segments are abandoned, participation in subsequent 
tensor impedance 
estimation is canceled, 
tensor impedance 
estimation is carried out by use of a conventional remote reference magnetotelluric mode based on a Robust method, and 
apparent resistivity and impedance phase values are calculated by use of tensor estimated values. The method provided by the invention is applied to magnetotelluric exploration.