ARTICLE IN PRESS

Computers & Geosciences 31 (2005) 319–328

www.elsevier.com/locate/cageo

An efficient 1D OCCAM’S inversion algorithm using

analytically computed first- and second-order derivatives
for DC resistivity soundings$
Nimisha Vedanti, Ravi P. Srivastava, John Sagode1, V.P. Dimri
National Geophysical Research Institute, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Post Bag No. 724, Uppal Road,
Hyderabad 500 007, India

Abstract

An efficient algorithm has been developed for 1D resistivity inversion problem using both first- and second-order
derivatives, which are computed analytically. The second-order derivative matrix, which is not used in the OCCAM’s
inversion, has been incorporated into the algorithm employing analytical expressions. Computation of complicated
second-order derivatives in each iteration is circumvented by a new algorithm. These modifications result in stable
convergence of the OCCAM’s inversion and in general, better misfit can be achieved specially for smoothing parameter,
mo1: The modified inversion algorithm, coded in MATLAB was tested using two synthetic Schlumberger resistivity
sounding examples. Its application has been illustrated with field data from south India.
r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Hessian matrix; Jacobian matrix; Schlumberger sounding; Newton’s method; Smoothing parameter

1. Introduction order derivatives that carry useful curvature information

The OCCAM’s inversion algorithm was first intro-
duced by Constable et al. (1987) to find the smoothest
model that fits the magnetotelluric (MT) and Schlum-
berger geoelectric sounding data. The method gained
popularity in inversion studies and was applied to many
investigations (LaBrecque et al., 1996; Siripunvaraporn
and Egbert, 1996; Qian et al., 1997). In this scheme a
highly nonlinear problem is formulated in a linear
fashion, which obviates the computation of second-
$
Code on server at http://www.iamg.org/CGEditor/index.htm.
Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 40 234 34 600;
fax: +91 40 234 34651.
E-mail address: vpdimri@ngri.res.in (V.P. Dimri).
1
CSIR-TWAS Fellow.
of the objective function.
In this paper the 1D OCCAM’s algorithm has been
improved by inclusion of second-order derivative matrix
known as Hessian that is computed analytically. This
leads to a quadratic equation approximation of the
objective function. The modified algorithm has been
tested on synthetic and real field resistivity sounding
data. It is found that the modified algorithm is more
stable and convergent than OCCAM’s inversion.
The computation of second-order derivatives in
Schlumberger resistivity sounding involves cumbersome
piece of algebra and therefore these derivatives are
computed numerically using finite difference schemes.
This introduces many unacceptable errors and requires
more computational time, which results in inaccurate
curvature information that decides the step of descent
where as computation of the derivatives analytically

0098-3004/$ - see front matter r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.cageo.2004.10.015
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
320 N. Vedanti et al. / Computers & Geosciences 31 (2005) 319–328

solves the problem. The analytic approach based on Using the identity
recursive formulation provides faster computation of the
derivatives. rxfWGðxÞÞT W DYðxÞg ¼ ðWHðxÞÞT W DYðxÞ
 ðWGðxÞÞT WGðxÞ

the Qk becomes
2. Formulation of the problem
Qk ¼ r2 xU
The nonlinear resistivity inversion relates observed 1
data and model parameters by equation ¼ @T @  fðWGðxÞÞT WGðxÞ
m
Y ¼ gðxÞ þ n; (1)  ðWHðxÞÞT W DYðxÞg
where Y ¼ ðy1 ; . . . ; yN ; Þ is a vector representing ob- where GðxÞ is Jacobian of gðxÞ and HðxÞ is Hessian of
servations at different half-electrode separations in gðxÞ:
Schlumberger sounding, N is number of half-electrode If we define
separations, gðxÞ ¼ ðg1 ðxÞ; . . . ; gN ðxÞÞ represents pre- X
dicted data at different half-electrode separations, and ðWHÞT W DY ¼ WH j W DYj as q;
n is the measurement noise. j
Various schemes to treat this non-linear problem are
described in detail by Dimri (1992). Terminology used where in H j is Hessian of gðxÞ evaluated at jth data point
here closely follows Chernoguz (1995) with some and DYj ¼ yj  gj ðxÞ; q is the nonlinear part of the
differences arising due to Constable et al. (1987). Hessian, then minimization of the functional (2) using
Following Constable et al. (1987) the inverse problem Newton’s method for ith iteration step di yields
is posed as a constrained optimization problem, set forth  1
di ¼  @T @ þ m1 fWGðxÞT WGðxÞ  qg
to minimize misfit X ¼ jjW Y  WgðxÞjj; subject to the 
constraint that roughness R ¼ jj@xjj is also minimized.
@T @x  m1 WGðxÞT W DYðxÞ x¼xi : ð3Þ
This can be converted to an unconstrained problem by
the use of Lagrange parameter m as follows: Thus xiþ1 ¼ xi þ di forms the iterative basis for the
optimization of functional (2). Eq. (3) gives generalized
1 1 OCCAM’s correction steps. By setting q as a null
U ¼ jj@xjj2 þ fðW DYðxÞÞT ðW DYðxÞ  w2 Þg; (2)
2 2m matrix, the equation gives the model correction of the
where @ is N
N matrix defined by Constable et al. popular OCCAM’s inversion algorithm. The OCCAM’s
(1987) as optimization in Eq. (3) can be viewed as two sub-
0 1 algorithms, where primary optimizes the functional U
0 0 ::: ::: 0 for different values of x and m and secondary optimizes
B 1 1 ::: ::: 0C only misfit function. The difficulty may arise when the
B C
B C primary suggests corrections in the direction of decreas-
B 0 1 1 ::: 0C
@¼B B :
C: ing U and secondary moves in search of decreasing
B : : : :C
C
B C misfit without regarding the roughness. Thus due to lack
@ : : : : :A of curvature information in the OCCAM’s inversion,
0 0 ::: 1 1 secondary algorithm becomes blind in the direction of
W is weighting matrix, w is acceptable misfit value and, true minimum of w2 ; when the requirement of the
m is a Lagrange parameter used to optimize the primary algorithm to reduce U is overpowering.
constrained functional ‘U’ (Smith, 1974) and DYðxÞ ¼ Another problem in OCCAM’s inversion is the choice
W Y  WgðxÞ: If we expand the functional in Taylor’s of Lagrange’s parameter m. If we take mo1 for
series at x ¼ xk (say) we get minimization of functional used in standard OCCAM’s
inversion, the algorithm tends to be blind to minimize
1 misfit function in the absence of the curvature informa-
Uðxk þ d; m; YÞ ¼ Uðxk ; m; YÞ þ J Tk d þ dT Qk d;
2 tion. Hence, there is need to incorporate curvature
where information in terms of Hessian matrix. If we take mp1
in Eq. (3) the nonlinear part carrying curvature
1
J k ¼ rxU ¼ @T @x  ðWGðxÞÞT W DYðxÞ information, will contribute to the convergence. In our
m work we include the curvature information in the
and OCCAM’s model correction steps. From Newton–-
Gauss method we have,
1
Qk ¼ r2 xU ¼ @T @  rx fðWGðxÞÞT W DYðxÞg:
m xiþ1 ¼ xi þ ai di ; (4)
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N. Vedanti et al. / Computers & Geosciences 31 (2005) 319–328
where ai is the extra smoothing parameter which
uses curvature information as provided by Hessian
terms.
Following Chernoguz (1995) we have
( s ¼ log2 ½ln ð1  a2 Þ= ln ð1  a1 Þ:
j0 ð0Þj00 ð0Þ if 0oai p1;
ai ¼ (5)
1 otherwise;
where j0 ð0Þ is the first-order derivative and j00 ð0Þ is the
second-order derivative of Uðxi þ ai di ; m; YÞ that are
computed as
j0 ð0Þ ¼ dTi ½@@xi  m1 WGðxi ÞT W DYðxi Þ
and
j00 ð0Þ ¼  dTi ½@@xi  m1 fWGðxi ÞT W DYðxi Þ
 WHðxi ÞT W DYðxi Þdi g;
where the computation of Hessian matrix is involved in
each iteration.
Generally, derivatives are calculated using finite-
difference techniques. The two most commonly used
techniques are forward difference, which is accurate to
first order and central difference, which is accurate to
second order. In general, errors in forward difference
approximation become unacceptably large during the
321
where t and s are positive scalar constants (sX1) in ith
iteration, given as
t ¼  ln ð1  a1 Þ;
ð7Þ
Eq. (5) is used to find the two consecutive values of a,
i.e. a1 and a2 that are less than 1. In subsequent
iterations, Eq. (6) can be applied directly to find the
values of extra smoothing parameter to be used in
correction steps of Eq. (4). This avoids computation of
the tedious Hessian matrix in each iteration. In the
modified algorithm we choose initial model at random
as in the case of global optimization techniques. The
above-described inversion algorithm is coded in MA-
TLAB and can run on any machine. The weighting
matrix used in the code is taken as identity if uncertainty
in the data is not known. Step wise description of the
MATLAB code is given in Appendix A.
3. Analytical expressions of derivatives
The forward calculation for Schlumberger apparent
resistivity over a layered earth is given as
last few iterations and often in such cases, central  2 Z1  
AB AB
difference scheme is used. Computation of partial ra ¼ T 1 ðlÞJ 1 l l dl; (8)
2 2
derivatives using central difference requires twice 0
evaluations of forward functional than forward
difference (Constable et al., 1987), and takes more where J1 is the first-order Bessel’s function of the first
computational time. Hence it is not worthwhile to kind, AB/2 is the half-electrode spacing, l is electrode
use central difference for computation of Jacobian parameter, T 1 is the resistivity transform (Koefoed,
and Hessian matrices. Errors associated with computa- 1976) that can be calculated recursively as
tion of Hessian terms have a substantial effect on T i þ ri1 tanhðlti1 Þ
inversion algorithm. The use of analytical expre- T i1 ¼ ;
1 þ T i tanhðlti1 Þ=ri1
ssions instead of finite difference solves all the above
problems. where ri and ti are the resistivity and thickness of ith
In OCCAM’s inversion Constable et al. (1987) have layer, respectively.
computed Jacobian matrix for Schlumberger sounding For the last layer T M ¼ rM ; where M is number of
using analytical expressions and have concluded that the layers.
Schlumberger resistivity inversion with finite-difference Using fast Hankel transforms apparent resistivity can
derivatives takes 15 times more computational time than be written as (Ghosh, 1971):
the analytical derivatives. Hence in our algorithm, the X
Hessian terms are calculated analytically. ra ¼ T 1 ðlK Þf K ; (9)
K
For very large data sets computation of the Hessian in
each iteration becomes very tedious and time consum- where f K are the filter coefficients and K is the number
ing, hence we follow Chernoguz (1995) to minimize the of coefficients.
computations and at the same time to preserve the
curvature information using Hessian matrix in the extra
smoothing parameter a. In our algorithm Eq. (3) can be 3.1. First-order derivatives
used for first two iterations to get the two consecutive
values of a that are less than 1, and then the next The first-order derivatives of Eq. (9) are
correction step can be deduced using a relation qra X qT 1 ðlK Þ
¼ f K; (10)
s
ai ¼ 1  expðti Þ; (6) qrj K
qrj
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where Table 2
Synthetic data generated using input model given in (a) Table
qT 1 qT 1 qT 2 qT j1 qT j
¼  ; (10a) 1A and (b) Table 1B
qrj qT 2 qT 3 qT j qrj
AB/2 (m) Apparent Log 10 apparent
qT j resistivity resistivity
¼ ½1  tanh2 ðtj lK Þ=C j ; (10b) (O m) (O m)
qT jþ1
(a)
qT j
¼ tanhðtj lK Þ½1 þ T 2jþ1 =r2j 2.50 8.69 0.94
qrj 3.00 9.05 0.96
þ 2T jþ1 tanhðtj lK Þ=rj =C j ; ð10cÞ 3.70 9.71 0.99
4.60 10.79 1.03
and 5.80 12.61 1.10
7.20 15.26 1.18
8.40 17.95 1.25
C j ¼ ½1 þ tanh2 ðtj lK ÞT jþ1 =rj 2 ; (10d)
10.00 22.08 1.34
also 12.50 29.67 1.47
16.00 42.05 1.62
qT M 20.00 57.78 1.76
¼ 1; (11) 25.00 78.35 1.89
qrM 30.00 98.68 1.99
since T M ¼ rM for the last layer. 37.00 125.21 2.10
46.00 154.72 2.19
58.00 185.90 2.27
3.2. Second-order derivatives
72.00 212.54 2.33
84.00 229.22 2.36
The second-order derivatives of Eq. (9) are 100.00 245.38 2.39
125.00 261.82 2.42
qra X q2 T 1 ðlK Þ 160.00 275.04 2.44
¼ f : (12) 200.00 283.37 2.45
qrj qri K
qrj qri K
250.00 289.15 2.46
300.00 292.49 2.47
(b)
2.50 8.22 0.91
3.00 8.36 0.92
Table 1 3.70 8.64 0.94
Input synthetic models 4.60 9.10 0.96
5.80 9.91 1.00
Input model Input model Inverted model Error (O m) 7.20 11.08 1.04
(O m) log10 predicted log 10 8.40 12.25 1.09
(resistivity) (resistivity) 10.00 14.04 1.15
(O m) (O m) 12.50 17.28 1.24
16.00 22.70 1.36
(a) Model 1a 20.00 30.02 1.48
8.10 0.91 0.90 1.02 25.00 40.60 1.61
15.40 1.19 1.31 0.76 30.00 52.44 1.72
166.40 2.22 1.91 2.04 37.00 70.47 1.85
215.50 2.33 2.32 1.02 46.00 94.83 1.98
300.40 2.48 2.48 1.00 58.00 127.02 2.10
(b) Model 2b 72.00 161.69 2.21
8.00 0.90 0.93 0.93 84.00 187.91 2.27
15.60 1.19 1.25 0.87 100.00 217.66 2.34
60.30 1.78 1.63 1.41 125.00 253.67 2.40
112.20 2.05 1.97 1.20 160.00 288.15 2.46
210.30 2.32 2.29 1.07 200.00 313.16 2.50
375.80 2.58 2.57 1.02 250.00 332.26 2.52
300.00 343.99 2.54
Error (O m) ¼ 10(log10(input model) log10 (inverted model).
a
No. of layers is 5 and thickness of each layer is 2.5 m.
b
No. of layers is 6 and thickness of each layer is 3.5 m.
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N. Vedanti et al. / Computers & Geosciences 31 (2005) 319–328 323

Fig. 1. (A–E) Comparative convergence of both the algorithms for different values of m for synthetic data given in Table 2B. Solid lines
denote the observed data, asterisks (*) denote the predicted values using the modified algorithm and circles (o) denote the predicted
values obtained using OCCAM’s algorithm. The Starting model is a half-space of 105 O m.

For Hessian, we!need to evaluate Table 3

q2 T 1 q qT 1 Results obtained using synthetic data shown in (a) Table 2Aa
¼ : (13) and (b) Table 2Bb
qri qrj qri qrj
m RMS misfit RMS misfit No. of
Hence the Hessian matrix for each electrode spacing is
(modified (OCCAM’s iterations
formed as:
2 q2 T q2 T 1 q2 T 1 2
T1
3 algorithm) algorithm)
qr2
1
qr1 qr2 qr1 qr3 : : : qrq qr
6 21 1 M
7 (a)
6 q T1 q2 T 1 q2 T 1 q2 T 1 7
6 qr @r 2 : : : 7 10 0.2987 0.2678 7
6 2 1 qr2 qr2 qr3 qr2 qrM 7
6 : : : : : : : 7 1.5 0.0869 0.0703 5
6 7
6 7 1.0 0.0645 0.0499 5
6 : : : : : : : 7: (14)
6 7 0.85 0.0575 0.0429 5
6 : : : : : : : 7 0.5 0.0380 15.5581 4
6 7
6 7 0.25 0.0257 36.2329 6
6 : : : : : : : 7
4 2 2 2
5 0.015 0.0076 2.5276 8
q T1 q T1
qr qr qr qr : : : : qqrT2 1
M 1 M 2 M
(b)
The Hessian matrix is N
M
M but corresponding 1.5 0.0741 0.0553 5
to each electrode spacing it is a 1
M
M symmetric 1.0 0.0529 1.0576 5
0.75 0.0416 1.2609 5
matrix. Thus we need only either upper triangular or
0.5 0.0297 1.8186 5
lower triangular elements to evaluate the Hessian
0.25 0.0170 1.2405 6
matrix.
Diagonal elements (i ¼ j) are computed using Eq. (13) a
Layer thickness is 2.5 m.
b
as Layer thickness is 3.5 m.
!
q2 T 1 q qT 1 where we get the sum of i terms as
¼
qr2j qrj qrj
!        
q qT 1 qT 2 qT 3 qT j1 qT j q2 T 1 q2 T 1 qT 2 2 qT 3 2 qT j2 2 qT j1 2
¼ ... ; ð14aÞ ¼ . . .
qrj qT 2 qT 3 qT 4 qT j qrj qr2j qT 22 qT 3 qT 4 qT j1 qT j
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324 N. Vedanti et al. / Computers & Geosciences 31 (2005) 319–328

!2 !   
qT j qT 1 q2 T 2 qT 3 2 qT j2 2 with the inverted models. Filter coefficients used in the

þ ... algorithm (Das and Kumar, 1976) are given in Appendix
qrj qT 2 qT 23 qT 4 qT j1
B. First column of Table 1A and B shows the input
  !2
qT j1 2 qT j qT 1 qT 2 q2 T k models with constant layer thickness used to generate

þ ... þ ... 2 the synthetic data. This synthetic data shown in
qT j qrj qT 2 qT 3 qT kþ1
Table 2A and B is used to test the inversion algorithm.
 2  2
qT kþ1 qT j1 qT 1 qT 2 The inverted model is compared with the true model to

... þ ... þ demonstrate the accuracy and efficacy of the modified
qT kþ2 qT j qT 2 qT 3
algorithm. Errors of the inverted parameters are shown
qT 3 qT j2 qT j1 q2 T j

... ð14bÞ in the fourth columns of Table 1, which ranges between
qT 4 qT j1 qT j qr2j 0.8 and 2.0 O m. The convergence of both the modified
and nondiagonal elements are represented as and original OCCAM’s inversion algorithms for differ-
    ent values of m has been shown in Fig. 1(A–E) for input
q2 T 1 q2 T 1 qT 2 2 qT 3 2 qT i qT i qT j synthetic model No. 2 (Table 2B). The results are
¼ ...
qri qrj qT 22 qT 3 qT 4 qT j qri qrj shown in Table 3A and B. It clearly shows that for
!  mo1 the modified algorithm works whereas OCCAM’s
qT 1 q2 T 2 qT 3 2 qT 4 qT i qT j algorithm fails. For m41; the OCCAM’s algorithm
þ ...
qT 2 qT 23 qT 4 qT 5 qri qrj weighted more on the smoothness terms. Hence
qT 1 qT 2 q2 T 3 qT i qT i qT j
þ ... þ ...
qT 2 qT 3 qT 24 qT j qri qrj
 
qT 1 qT 2 qT 3 qT i1 qT j q qT i 3.5
þ ... ;
qT 2 qT 3 qT 4 qT i qrj qri qT j
3
ð14cÞ µ
= 1.5
2.5
where in = 1.0
RMS misfit

  ! 2 = 0.75
q qT j q qT j
¼ (14d) = 0.50
qrj qT jþ1 qT jþ1 qrj 1.5
= 0.25

1
¼ 2 tanhðtj lK ÞT jþ1 ½1
 
qT j 0.5
þ T jþ1 tanhðtj lK Þ=rj  r2j C j ð14eÞ
qT jþ1
0
1 2 3 4 5 6
2 (A)
q Tj No. of Iterations
¼  2 tanhðtj lk Þf1  tanh2 ðtj lk ÞgT 2jþ1 =frj
qr2j 250

þ tanhðtj lk ÞT jþ1 g ; 3
ð14fÞ µ
= 1.50
200
= 1.00
q2 T j
¼  2r2j tanhðtj lK Þ½1 = 0.75
qT 2jþ1
RMS misfit

150 = 0.50
 tanh2 ðtj lk Þ=frj þ tan hðtj lk ÞT jþ1 g; ð14gÞ = 0.25

Cj is the same as in Jacobian computations. It is 100

advantageous to compute all the terms of the Hessian
and the adjoining products simultaneously to save
50
computational time and memory.

0
1 2 3 4 5 6
4. Applications (B) No. of Iterations

4.1. Synthetic examples
To assess the performance of the modified inversion
algorithm, two synthetic models have been compared
Fig. 2. (A) Plot of iterations vs. RMS misfit for different values
of m obtained by modified algorithm using synthetic data as
shown in Table 2B and (B) plot of iterations vs. RMS misfit for
different values of m using obtained by OCCAM’s algorithm
using synthetic data as shown in Table 2B.
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the modified algorithm can be seen as generalized half-space of 105 O m, which was far from the observed
OCCAM’s inversion. one. The modified algorithm searches for the lowest
It is worth pointing here that smaller values of m misfit until it becomes constant with further iterations as
should be preferred to give less weight to the smooth- shown in Fig. 4. This is the global optimization strategy
ness/roughness part as described in Eq. (2). The bias of our inversion scheme, where the existing OCCAM’s
of algorithm to generate smooth models should be inversion fails for mo1: Results obtained using the
avoided whenever it is not required. Variation of modified algorithm for different values of m, are shown
RMS misfit with iteration number has been shown in in Table 4.
Fig. 2 for different values of m: The modified algorithm
shows stable convergence, while erratic variation in
RMS misfit of OCCAM’s algorithm has been observed
for mo1: We observed a remarkable difference in
convergence between modified inversion algorithm 2.5
and existing OCCAM’s algorithm for mo1: Results
obtained using two different filters is shown in µ
2 = 1.00
Appendix C.
= 0.10

RMS misfit
1.5 = 0.05
4.2. Field example = 0.0125

= 0.005
The developed algorithm is used to invert 1D 1

Schlumberger resistivity sounding data. The data from

Southern Granulitic Terrain (SGT) of India 0.5
(111340 5400 N, 78130 1800 E) over a 10 km long profile is
given in Appendix D. This data has been collected
by Deep Resistivity Sounding (DRS) Group of 0
1 2 3 4 5 6
NGRI, Hyderabad, India using the Scintrex make Deep
No. of Iterations
Resistivity Equipment, TSQ4-10 KVA. The convergence
of the modified algorithm has been shown in Fig. 4. Plot of iterations vs. RMS misfit for different values of m
Fig. 3(A–F). We have assumed starting model as a using field data of SGT.
Log10 [Apparent Resistivity] [ohm-m]

Iteration No. 1 Iteration No. 2 Iteration No. 3

5 8 4.5
(A) (B) (C)
4
4 6
3.5
3 4 3
2.5
2 2
Observed 2
Predicted
1 0 1.5
0 2 4 0 2 4 0 2 4

Iteration No. 4 Iteration No. 5 Iteration No. 6

Log10 [Apparent Resistivity] [ohm-m]

4 4 4
(D) (E) (F)
3.5 3.5 3.5

3 3 3

2.5 2.5 2.5

2 2 2

1.5 1.5 1.5

0 2 4 0 2 4 0 2 4
log 10(AB/2) [m] log 10(AB/2) [m] log 10(AB/2) [m]

Fig. 3. (A–F) Convergence of modified algorithm for m ¼ 0:0125 using field data of SGT as given in Appendix D. Solid lines denote
observed data, asterisks (*) denote predicted values using modified algorithm. The starting model is a half-space of 105 O m.
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Table 4
Results obtained by modified algorithm using field data over SGT

Iteration No. RMS misfit

m ¼ 1:0 m ¼ 0:1 m ¼ 0:05 m ¼ 0:0125 m ¼ 0:005

1 2.3147 2.3147 2.3147 2.3147 2.3147

2 1.9339 2.3385 2.4075 2.4804 2.4967
3 0.493 0.1925 0.1703 0.2209 0.3221
4 0.1751 0.0977 0.0851 0.0777 0.0986
5 0.1682 0.0952 0.0795 0.0593 0.0529
6 0.168 0.0951 0.0792 0.0584 0.0494

5. Concluding remarks (b) AB/2 vs. apparent resistivity (in log10);

The modified OCCAM’s inversion algorithm is very
efficient, robust and simple to be used for 1D resistivity
inversion. The modified algorithm finds an alternate way
to simplify the nonlinear resistivity inversion problem
without linearizing it. The code computes the first- and
second-order derivatives of Schlumberger resistivity
analytically and in general the convergence is obtained
within 5–6 iterations. We have demonstrated the efficacy
of the algorithm with two synthetic examples. For mo1;
the modified gives less RMS error than OCCAM’s with
equal number of iterations. For m41 our modified
algorithm yields similar results as OCCAM’s. Hence our
inversion algorithm may be considered as generalized
OCCAM’s inversion.
Acknowledgements
Authors express heartfelt thanks towards late Profes-
sor P.S. Moharir for his invaluable suggestions to
develop the MATLAB codes. We are thankful to
Professor Peter Weidelt and reviewers of the manuscript
for many constructive comments that helped us in
improving quality of the work. We acknowledge Dr.
S.B. Singh, Head, Deep Resistivity Sounding Group,
NGRI Hyderabad for providing DC geoelectric sound-
ing data of SGT. One of the authors John Sagode
acknowledges CSIR, India and TWAS, Italy for the
award of fellowship.
(c) starting model.
Predicted apparent resistivity values corresponding
to each AB/2 are computed using starting model by
2. the forward algorithm.
3. First-order and second-order derivatives are com-
puted analytically which is multiplied with the
filter coefficients to obtain apparent resistivity
values.
4. First-order derivatives are arranged to form Jaco-
bian and second-order derivative are arranged to
form Hessian matrix.
5. Predicted resistivity values are matched with the
observed data, and the difference is computed.
6. With the above-mentioned steps the functional to be
minimized is ready.
7. Search for m that minimizes the objective functional
depending upon user’s choice (Golden section
search may be used for this purpose).
8. Iteration steps are computed using Eq. (4) and
values of a are computed using Eq. (5).
9. If in any two consecutive iteration different values of
a are obtained such that these are o1, then Hessian
computation is bypassed and the value of a obtained
by consecutive a values are used in iteration steps,
otherwise a ¼ 1:
10. Above procedure is repeated until two consecutive
misfit values o1 having difference of o0.001 is
obtained.

Appendix B. Schlumberger coefficients as given by Das

Appendix A. Stepwise code description of 1D nonlinear and Kumar (1976) are
resistivity inversion algorithm

1. Input to the program: Sampling interval ln 10/6

(a) digital resistivity filters (as per the choice of Shift +0.1343155
user); Total number of filter points 14
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N. Vedanti et al. / Computers & Geosciences 31 (2005) 319–328 327

Number of filter points with negative 3 Appendix D. Field data acquired over Southern Granulite
indices Terrain (SGT) of South India
Number of filter points with positive 10
indices
AB/2 (m) Apparent Log 10
resistivity (apparent
Index number Filter coeff.
(O m) resistivity)
3 0.0140 (O m)
2 0.0282
4 67 1.8261
1 0.0838
5 68 1.8325
0 0.2427
6 74 1.8692
1 0.6217
15 170 2.2304
2 1.1877
25 260 2.415
3 0.3954
40 320 2.5051
4 3.4531
60 280 2.4472
5 2.7568
120 150 2.1761
6 1.2075
150 150 2.1761
7 0.4595
200 200 2.301
8 0.1975
300 540 2.7324
9 0.1042
500 2400 3.3802
10 0.0359
600 4200 3.6232
800 6300 3.7993
1000 6600 3.8195
Appendix C. Results obtained using different filters: m ¼ 1500 6400 3.8062
0:012 2500 7400 3.8692
5000 9950 3.9978
Model Log 10 (resistivity)
Layer thickness 6.0 m

Input Computed model Computed

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