CSIRO PUBLISHING www.publish.csiro.au/journals/eg Exploration Geophysics, 2007, 38, 44–49 3D gravity inversion with Euler deconvolution as a priori information

Abstract. It is difficult to obtain high-resolution images by 3D gravity inversion, because the problem is extremely underdetermined – there are too many model parameters. In order to reduce the number of model parameters we propose a 3D gravity inversion scheme utilising Euler deconvolution as a priori information. The essential point of this scheme is the reduction of the nonuniqueness of solutions by restricting the inversion space with the help of Euler deconvolution. We carry out a systematic exploration of the growing body process, but only in the restricted space within a certain radius of the Euler solutions. We have tested our method with synthetic gravity data, and also applied it to a real dataset, to delineate underground cavities in a limestone area.We found that we obtained a more reasonable subsurface density image by means of this combination between the Euler solution and the inversion process. Key words: Euler deconvolution, gravity inversion, nonuniqueness