3D adaptive tomography using Delaunay triangles and Voronoi polygons

• Published in: Geophysical Prospecting Vol. 48; no. 4; pp. 723 - 744
• Main Authors: Böhm, Gualtiero, Galuppo, Paolo, Vesnaver, Aldo
• Format: Journal Article Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Science Ltd 01.07.2000; Blackwell
• Subjects: Applied geophysics; Earth sciences; Earth, ocean, space; Exact sciences and technology; Internal geophysics; algorithms; inverse problem; triangulation; salt; ray tracing; velocity; chemically precipitated rocks; evaporites; frequency; sedimentary rocks; tomography; travel time; seismic waves
• ISSN: 0016-8025; 1365-2478
• DOI: 10.1046/j.1365-2478.2000.00211.x

The solutions of traveltime inversion problems are often not unique because of the poor match between the raypath distribution and the tomographic grid. However, by adapting the local resolution iteratively, by means of a singular value analysis of the tomographic matrix, we can reduce or eliminate the null space influence on our earth image: in this way, we get a much more reliable estimate of the velocity field of seismic waves. We describe an algorithm for an automatic regridding, able to fit the local resolution to the available raypaths, which is based on Delaunay triangulation and Voronoi tessellation. It increases the local pixel density where the null space energy is low or the velocity gradient is large, and reduces it elsewhere. Consequently, the tomographic image can reveal the boundaries of complex objects, but is not affected by the ambiguities that occur when the grid resolution is not adequately supported by the available raypaths.