Waveform Inversion for Earth Structure

Abstract

Waveform inversion is a technique to determine earth structure using the observed waveforms themselves, rather than intermediate parameters such as travel times, as the data to be inverted. This technique is widely employed in both exploration seismology and global seismology. Waveform inversion fully utilizes all of the information contained in the observed waveform, whereas seismic tomography using the times of the first arrivals uses only part of the available information. We review recent developments and applications of waveform inversion, mainly in the field of global seismology.