A modified pulse-spectrum technique for solving inverse problems of two- dimensional elastic wave equation (Q1059384)

The pulse spectrum technique, developed earlier by the second author and his co-workers, is extended to cover the elastic wave equation in two space dimensions. The aim is to invert seismic reflection data recorded at the free surface in order to recover the elastic parameters and density of the underlying inhomogeneous medium. By means of the Laplace transform, the inverse problem is solved by an iterative method that involves a Fredholm integral equation of the first kind, which is solved, in turn, using regularization. A numerical example is given showing good accuracy in the inversion of artificial data. Discretization is achieved by finite elements on a coarse computational grid.