New Advances in Regularized Inversion and Imaging of Gravity, Magnetic, and Electromagnetic Data

Interpretation of potential and electromagnetic (EM) fields observed over 3D geological structures remains one of the most challenging problems of exploration geophysics. In this paper I present an overview of modern methods of inversion and imaging of gravity, magnetic, and EM data, which are based on new advances in regularization theory related to application of special stabilizing functionals that allow construction of both smooth images of the underground geological structures and models with sharp geological boundaries. I demonstrate that sharp boundary geophysical inversion can improve the efficiency and resolution of the inverse problem solution. I also present a new technique for resolution analysis of regularized geophysical inversion, which evaluates the spatial distribution of the upper bounds of the inverse model errors. These upper bounds of the model variations determine the actual resolution of geophysical inversion. The methods are illustrated with synthetic and practical examples of 3D inversion of potential and EM field’s data.