An extremely high resolving capability of both direct current (DC) and transient electromagnetic (TEM) soundings using a vertical electric dipole (VED) source is shown. In contrast to conventional surface methods, electric, magnetic and EM fields generated by a VED are sensitive to the presence of very thin layers, even in the case of moderate resistivity contrasts. It is shown analytically that the field in asymptotic domains (long separations or late stage in DC and TEM methods, respectively) is exponentially related to geoelectric parameters of the section above an insulating basement. Numerical analysis, in turn, proves the high resolving capability of the methods under more realistic conditions, namely finite resistivity of the basement, moderate separations and measuring time.