Performance of Machine Learning Methods for Gravity Inversion: Successes and Challenges

Fuente: arXiv
Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Hauptverfasser: Negahdari, Vahid, Bahrami, Shirin Samadi, Moghadasi, Seyed Reza, Razvan, Mohammad Reza
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
_version_ 1866914087404830720
author Negahdari, Vahid
Bahrami, Shirin Samadi
Moghadasi, Seyed Reza
Razvan, Mohammad Reza
author_facet Negahdari, Vahid
Bahrami, Shirin Samadi
Moghadasi, Seyed Reza
Razvan, Mohammad Reza
contents Gravity inversion is the problem of estimating subsurface density distributions from observed gravitational field data. We consider the two-dimensional (2D) case, in which recovering density models from one-dimensional (1D) measurements leads to an underdetermined system with substantially more model parameters than measurements, making the inversion ill-posed and non-unique. Recent advances in machine learning have motivated data-driven approaches for gravity inversion. We first design a convolutional neural network (CNN) trained to directly map gravity anomalies to density fields, where a customized data structure is introduced to enhance the inversion performance. To further investigate generative modeling, we employ Variational Autoencoders (VAEs) and Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), reformulating inversion as a latent-space optimization constrained by the forward operator. In addition, we assess whether classical iterative solvers such as Gradient Descent (GD), GMRES, LGMRES, and a recently proposed Improved Conjugate Gradient (ICG) method can refine CNN-based initial guesses and improve inversion accuracy. Our results demonstrate that CNN inversion not only provides the most reliable reconstructions but also significantly outperforms previously reported methods. Generative models remain promising but unstable, and iterative solvers offer only marginal improvements, underscoring the persistent ill-posedness of gravity inversion.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_09632
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Performance of Machine Learning Methods for Gravity Inversion: Successes and Challenges
Negahdari, Vahid
Bahrami, Shirin Samadi
Moghadasi, Seyed Reza
Razvan, Mohammad Reza
Geophysics
Machine Learning
Numerical Analysis
Gravity inversion is the problem of estimating subsurface density distributions from observed gravitational field data. We consider the two-dimensional (2D) case, in which recovering density models from one-dimensional (1D) measurements leads to an underdetermined system with substantially more model parameters than measurements, making the inversion ill-posed and non-unique. Recent advances in machine learning have motivated data-driven approaches for gravity inversion. We first design a convolutional neural network (CNN) trained to directly map gravity anomalies to density fields, where a customized data structure is introduced to enhance the inversion performance. To further investigate generative modeling, we employ Variational Autoencoders (VAEs) and Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), reformulating inversion as a latent-space optimization constrained by the forward operator. In addition, we assess whether classical iterative solvers such as Gradient Descent (GD), GMRES, LGMRES, and a recently proposed Improved Conjugate Gradient (ICG) method can refine CNN-based initial guesses and improve inversion accuracy. Our results demonstrate that CNN inversion not only provides the most reliable reconstructions but also significantly outperforms previously reported methods. Generative models remain promising but unstable, and iterative solvers offer only marginal improvements, underscoring the persistent ill-posedness of gravity inversion.
title Performance of Machine Learning Methods for Gravity Inversion: Successes and Challenges
topic Geophysics
Machine Learning
Numerical Analysis
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.09632