Preserving Horizontality Using Topography Corrected Laterally Constrained Inversion

Geophysical dataset from areas with substantial topography cause problems to many inversion routines. Commonly, the cells or layers of the model follow the topography which then favors layers boundaries of the inverted model that are topography-parallel. In many cases the geological layering is not connected to the overall topography, e.g. an erosional environment over a horizontal sub-stratum. Inverting data from such areas are penalized if the topography is not taken into account when dealing with the constraints We present a simple way of correcting the constraints entering the roughness matrix of the inversion problem so that topography is neutralized and horizontal layering is favored. Synthetic modeling confirms the superiority of the topography neutralization over traditional depth referenced inversion. Field examples will be shown in the talk.