Gravity inversion of 2D fault having variable density contrast using particle swarm optimization

ABSTRACT A Matlab‐based optimization algorithm is introduced for inverting fault structures from observed gravity anomalies. A convenient graphical user interface is also presented for incorporating the input parameters without any technical complexity to any users. The inversion code uses particle swarm optimization, and all control parameters are tuned initially for faster convergence. There is no requirement of prior choice of an initial model, that is the advantage of using global optimization. The optimization technique is versatile enough to handle any depth‐varying density distributions. The maximum number of iterations and stopping criterion is fixed initially for getting the best optimized solution. The inverted model's output in terms of fault structure, observed and inverted gravity anomalies and dip, and vertex location of fault plane can be viewed in the graphical user interface at the end of the optimization process. The optimization algorithm is applied to different synthetic models with fixed and depth‐varying density contrasts. All synthetic models are further contaminated with white Gaussian noise for sensitivity analysis, and detailed uncertainty appraisal was also performed for the reliability estimation. Finally, the optimization is implemented for fault structure inversion of the Aswaraopet boundary fault, India, and found that the optimized solution provides a good agreement with the previously published literature. Optimized results indicate that this novel optimization approach demonstrates a robust implementation of fault inversion for any depth‐varying density distributions.