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69722 - Seismic Tomography

Academic Year 2022/2023

                
                        Docente:
                        Andrea Morelli
                    
                        Credits:
                        6
                    
                        SSD:
                        GEO/10
                    
                        Language:
                        Italian
                    
                        Teaching Mode:
                        Traditional lectures
                        
                            Campus:
                            Bologna
                        
                            Corso:
                            Second cycle degree programme (LM) in
                            Physics of the Earth System (cod. 8626)

                            Teaching resources on Virtuale

Learning outcomes

Goal of the course is to provide students with abilities to fit data and solve tomographic and inverse problems, with a focus on seismic tomography and Earth structure.

Course contents

The tomographic problem. Inverse problems in Geophysics: what they are and how to deal with them. Bayes' theorem and probabilistic approach to solution of inverse problems: general problem, solution of linear and weakly non linear problems, optimization, Monte Carlo methods and non linear problems. Other approaches (Backus-Gilbert, Levenberg-Marquardt, Occam, Singular Value Decomposition, ...) and comparison. Seismic waves in the Earth: summary of theory and signal analysis, with relevance for seismic tomography. Workflows for solving real tomographic problems. Current developments: numerical modelling and full-waveform tomography; use of seismic noise as useful signal. Determination of large-scale Earth structure: state of the art and open issues.

Readings/Bibliography

Tarantola A., Inverse problem theory, SIAM, 2005.
Stein S., and M. Wysession: An introduction to Seismology, earthquakes, and Earth structure. Blackwell Publishing, 2003.
Aki K., and P. G. Richards: Quantitative seismology. University Science Books, 2002.
Lecture notes and reading suggestions posted online

Teaching methods

Class lectures. Analysis and solution of test cases. Review of the state of the art and current problems with references to articles in scientific literature.

Assessment methods

The final exam is exclusively oral, and consists of an interview starting from an initial topic and following requests for further development made by the committee. The committee will assess the general understanding of the student of the methods at the base of seismic tomography -- mostly, inverse problem theory, but also the limits and range of application of the different methods, as well as the main accomplishments regarding global seismic structure and geodinamics.

Teaching tools

Class lectures. Class notes. Suggestions for practical exercises.

Office hours

See the website of Andrea Morelli