RT Journal Article SR Electronic(1) A1 Krampe, Valérie A1 Pan, Yudi A1 Bohlen, ThomasYR 2019 T1 Two‐dimensional elastic full‐waveform inversion of Love waves in shallow vertically transversely isotropic media: synthetic reconstruction tests JF Near Surface Geophysics, VO 17 IS 5 SP 449 OP 461 DO https://doi.org/10.1002/nsg.12061 PB European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers, SN 1873-0604, AB ABSTRACT In most shallow‐seismic applications of full‐waveform inversion, the subsurface is assumed to be isotropic, although near‐surface materials may exhibit strong seismic anisotropy. Ignoring anisotropy will lead to inexact solutions when simulating wave propagation or imaging the subsurface using full‐waveform inversion. For shallow structures, vertically transversely isotropic media provide a suitable approximation due to the fine horizontal layering of the sediments. We investigate the effects of anisotropy on surface waves and on shallow‐seismic full‐waveform inversion in vertically transversely isotropic media. The comparisons of seismograms calculated in isotropic and vertically transversely isotropic models show that the sensitivity of full‐waveform inversion towards anisotropy is significantly higher for Love waves than for Rayleigh waves. This observation indicates that it is more promising to perform full‐waveform inversion on Love waves rather than on Rayleigh waves to identify anisotropy of near‐surface materials. Therefore, we performed synthetic two‐dimensional reconstruction tests of anisotropic full‐waveform inversion using only shallow‐seismic Love waves. These tests revealed that the parameters describing vertical transverse isotropy can be accurately reconstructed by full‐waveform inversion. Although the inversion for density is still problematic, this does not affect the results for the seismic velocities in a significant way. The tests on synthetic data thus prove the general applicability and the benefits of an anisotropic inversion of shallow‐seismic Love waves, which can provide a more comprehensive subsurface characterization in shallow anisotropic media., UL https://www.earthdoc.org/content/journals/10.1002/nsg.12061