Parameter sensitivity analysis of a nonlinear least-squares optimization-based anelastic full waveform inversion method

In a recent article, we described a seismic inversion method for determining the crustal velocity and attenuation of basins in earthquake-prone regions. We formulated the problem as a constrained nonlinear least-squares optimization problem in which the constraints are the equations that describe the forward wave propagation. Here, we conduct a parametric study to investigate the influence of parameters such as the form of the regularization function, receiver density, preconditioning, noise level of the data, and the multilevel continuation technique on the cost and quality of the inversion. We use the same 2D Los Angeles example as in our earlier study. (C) 2010 Academic des sciences. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved