Constrained inversion of IP parameters from Airborne EM data

Abstract

The possibility of extracting IP information from AEM data never stopped being of inetrest to the sceintific community and industry. We apply to this old problem the proven approach of the Laterally and Spatially Constrained Inversion. By applying constraints in the model space, we improve the resolvability of model parameters in the ill posed inversion problem. We present a synthetic study where the model the IP response over a layered earth using the Cole Cole model. We simulate both an environmental and an exploration target. Results show that, as expected, in some cases, some of the Cole Cole parameters can be resolved better using the LCI-SCI than by using stitched together inversions. They also provide useful insight into different ranges/combinations of resolvable parameters. Limitations of the approach are those of the SCI-LCI; In presence of strong 3D varitaions, the dimensionality of the forward response produces inaccuracies in the recovered models. Nonetheless, we argue that this approach can be applied satisfactorily to a number of real cases.We aim at presenting at the conference results also from real dataset.