Machine Learning for Airborne Electromagnetic Data Inversion: a Bootstrapped Approach

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Greif, Ophir, Peters, Bas, McMillan, Michael S., Wozniakowska, Paulina, Haber, Eldad
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Greif, Ophir
Peters, Bas
McMillan, Michael S.
Wozniakowska, Paulina
Haber, Eldad
author_facet Greif, Ophir
Peters, Bas
McMillan, Michael S.
Wozniakowska, Paulina
Haber, Eldad
contents Aircraft-based surveying to collect airborne electromagnetic data is a key method to image large swaths of the Earth's surface in pursuit of better knowledge of aquifer systems. Despite many years of advancements, 3D inversion still poses challenges in terms of computational requirements, regularization selection, hyperparameter tuning and real-time inversion. We present a new approach for the inversion of airborne electromagnetic data that leverages machine learning to overcome the computational burden of traditional 3D inversion methods, which implicitly includes learned regularization and is applicable in real-time. The method combines 1D inversion results with geostatistical modeling to create tailored training datasets, enabling the development of a specialized neural network that predicts 2D conductivity models from airborne electromagnetic data. This approach requires 3D forward modeling and 1D inversion up front, but no forward modeling during inference. The workflow is applied to the Kaweah Subbasin in California, where it successfully reconstructs conductivity models consistent with real-world data and geological drill hole information. The results highlight the method's capability to deliver fast and accurate subsurface imaging, offering a valuable tool for groundwater exploration and other near-surface applications.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_01221
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Machine Learning for Airborne Electromagnetic Data Inversion: a Bootstrapped Approach
Greif, Ophir
Peters, Bas
McMillan, Michael S.
Wozniakowska, Paulina
Haber, Eldad
Geophysics
86A22
Aircraft-based surveying to collect airborne electromagnetic data is a key method to image large swaths of the Earth's surface in pursuit of better knowledge of aquifer systems. Despite many years of advancements, 3D inversion still poses challenges in terms of computational requirements, regularization selection, hyperparameter tuning and real-time inversion. We present a new approach for the inversion of airborne electromagnetic data that leverages machine learning to overcome the computational burden of traditional 3D inversion methods, which implicitly includes learned regularization and is applicable in real-time. The method combines 1D inversion results with geostatistical modeling to create tailored training datasets, enabling the development of a specialized neural network that predicts 2D conductivity models from airborne electromagnetic data. This approach requires 3D forward modeling and 1D inversion up front, but no forward modeling during inference. The workflow is applied to the Kaweah Subbasin in California, where it successfully reconstructs conductivity models consistent with real-world data and geological drill hole information. The results highlight the method's capability to deliver fast and accurate subsurface imaging, offering a valuable tool for groundwater exploration and other near-surface applications.
title Machine Learning for Airborne Electromagnetic Data Inversion: a Bootstrapped Approach
topic Geophysics
86A22
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.01221