This paper presents a comparative study of effectiveness of edge detection methods such as total horizontal gradient, analytic signal amplitude, tilt angle, gradient amplitude of tilt angle, theta map, horizontal tilt angle, tilt angle of total horizontal gradient, tilt angle of analytic signal, improved theta map, and total horizontal gradient of improved tilt angle. The effectiveness of each method was estimated on synthetic magnetic data and synthetic gravity anomaly data with and without noise. The obtained results show that the tilt angle of gradient amplitude can detect all the edges more clearly and precisely. The applicability of each method is demonstrated on the aeromagnetic anomaly data from the Zhurihe region of Northeast China, and Bouguer gravity anomaly data from a region of North Vietnam. The results computed by the tilt angle of horizontal gradient were also in accord with the geologic structures of the areas.