Efficient gravity inversion of basement relief using a versatile modeling algorithm

ABSTRACTWe have developed a novel approach to compute, in an efficient and versatile way, the gravity anomaly produced by an arbitrary, discrete 3D distribution of density contrast. The method allows adjustable precision and is particularly suited for the interpretation of sedimentary basins. Because the gravity field decays with the square of the distance, we use a discrete Green’s operator that may be made much smaller than the whole study area. For irregularly positioned observations, this discrete Green’s operator must be computed just at the first iteration, and because each of its horizontal layers presents a center of symmetry, only one-eighth of its total elements need to be calculated. Furthermore, for gridded data on a plane, this operator develops translation symmetry for the whole region of interest and has to be computed just once for a single arbitrary observation position. The gravity anomaly is obtained as the product of this small operator by any arbitrary density contrast distribution in...