Inversion algorithms for large-scale geophysical electromagnetic measurements

Low-frequency surface electromagnetic prospecting methods have been gaining a lot of interest because of their capabilities to directly detect hydrocarbon reservoirs and to compliment seismic measurements for geophysical exploration applications. There are two types of surface electromagnetic surveys. The first is an active measurement where we use an electric dipole source towed by a ship over an array of seafloor receivers. This measurement is called the controlled-source electromagnetic (CSEM) method. The second is the Magnetotelluric (MT) method driven by natural sources. This passive measurement also uses an array of seafloor receivers. Both surface electromagnetic methods measure electric and magnetic field vectors. In order to extract maximal information from these CSEM and MT data we employ a nonlinear inversion approach in their interpretation. We present two types of inversion approaches. The first approach is the so-called pixel-based inversion (PBI) algorithm. In this approach the investigation domain is subdivided into pixels, and by using an optimization process the conductivity distribution inside the domain is reconstructed. The optimization process uses the Gauss Newton minimization scheme augmented with various forms of regularization. To automate the algorithm, the regularization term is incorporated using a multiplicative cost function. This PBI approach has demonstrated its ability to retrieve reasonably good conductivity images. However, the reconstructed boundaries and conductivity values of the imaged anomalies are usually not quantitatively resolved. Nevertheless, the PBI approach can provide useful information on the location, the shape and the conductivity of the hydrocarbon reservoir. The second method is the so-called model-based inversion (MBI) algorithm, which uses a priori information on the geometry to reduce the number of unknown parameters and to improve the quality of the reconstructed conductivity image. This MBI approach can also be used to refine the conductivity image obtained using the PBI approach. The MBI also adopts the multiplicative regularized Gauss-Newton method. The unknown parameters that govern the location and the shape of an anomaly are the locations of the user-defined nodes for the boundaries of the probed region, whereas the unknown parameter that describes the physical property is the conductivity. We will show some inversion results of synthetic and field data to demonstrate the advantages of both the PBI and MBI approaches. We further demonstrate that by combining both inversion algorithms we can arrive at a better interpretation of both CSEM and MT data.