Process / pipelineParameter recovery

Geophysical Inversion

Geophysical inversion is the process of using observed geophysical data to estimate subsurface properties and structures. Formalized by Tikhonov (1963) and expanded by Tarantola (1987), this mathematical framework solves the inverse problem: given measurements (gravity, magnetics, seismic, electrical), what subsurface model produced them? Inversion is central to all quantitative geophysics and enables extraction of detailed subsurface information from surface or borehole measurements.

Open in MethodMindSoonVideoSoon

Read the full method

Members only

Sign in with a free account to read this section.

Sign in

Sources

  1. Tarantola, A. (1987). Inverse Problem Theory: Methods for Data Fitting and Model Parameter Estimation. Elsevier. link
  2. Constable, S. C., Parker, R. L., & Constable, C. G. (1990). Occam's inversion: A practical algorithm for generating smooth models from electromagnetic sounding data. Geophysics, 55(3), 289–300. DOI: 10.1190/1.1442796
  3. Menke, W. (2012). Geophysical Data Analysis: Discrete Inverse Theory (3rd ed.). Academic Press. DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-12-385048-5.00001-0

Related methods

Referenced by

ScholarGateGeophysical Inversion (Geophysical Inversion). Retrieved 2026-06-04 from https://scholargate.app/en/geoscience/geophysical-inversion