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Joint 3D inversion of multiple electromagnetic datasets
Author(s) -
Meqbel Naser,
Ritter Oliver
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
geophysical prospecting
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.735
H-Index - 79
eISSN - 1365-2478
pISSN - 0016-8025
DOI - 10.1111/1365-2478.12334
Subject(s) - magnetotellurics , inversion (geology) , weighting , geology , electromagnetics , resistive touchscreen , joint (building) , geophysics , electromagnetic field , computer science , seismology , acoustics , electronic engineering , electrical resistivity and conductivity , tectonics , physics , engineering , architectural engineering , quantum mechanics , computer vision
Electromagnetic methods are routinely applied to image the subsurface from shallow to regional structures. Individual electromagnetic methods differ in their sensitivities towards resistive and conductive structures and in their exploration depths. If a good balance between different electromagnetic data can be be found, joint 3D inversion of multiple electromagnetic datasets can result in significantly better resolution of subsurface structures than the individual inversions. We present a weighting algorithm to combine magnetotelluric, controlled source electromagnetic, and geoelectric data. Magnetotelluric data are generally more sensitive to regional conductive structures, whereas controlled source electromagnetic and geoelectric data are better suited to recover more shallow and resistive structures. Our new scheme is based on weighting individual components of the total data gradient after each model update. Norms of individual data residuals are used to assess how much of the total data gradient must be assigned to each method to achieve a balanced contribution of all datasets for the joint inverse model. Synthetic inversion tests demonstrate advantages of joint inversion in general and also the influence of the weighting. In our tests, the controlled source electromagnetic data gradients are larger than those of the magnetotelluric and geoelectric datasets. Consequently, direct joint inversion of controlled source electromagnetic, magnetotelluric, and geoelectric data results in models that are mostly dominated by structures required by the controlled source electromagnetic data. Applying the new adaptive weighting scheme results in an inversion model that fits the data better and resembles more the original model. We used the modular system electromagnetic as a framework to implement the new joint inversion and briefly describe the new modules for forward modelling and their interfaces to the modular system electromagnetic package.