Joint Inversion of Geophysical Data

Abstract

By jointly inverting several different kinds of geophysical measurements at a site we avoid some of the ambiguity inherent in the individual methods. We show how this can be done for the combination of DC resistivity and magnetotelluric measurements on a layered medium by considering a simple 3-layer model. The combination resolves the resistivity of the thin resistive second layer, even though neither of the two methods can do so alone. The method is then applied to field data from a shallow sedimentary basin. A blind zone occurs beneath a thick near-surface conductive shale. By a study of the eigenvalue structure of the model it can be seen that resolution in this zone would be slightly enhanced by higher frequency magnetotelluric data, but additional DC data at larger spacing would yield no improvement.