3D gravity inversion based on mixed-norm regularization in spherical coordinates with application to the lunar Moscoviense Basin

Abstract

Three-dimensional gravity inversion has been widely used to infer density structures and tectonic movements of the earth and Moon. However, two problems (the nonuniqueness and low depth resolution) of current gravity inversion methods still exist and are not completely resolved, which affect the reliability of the inversion results and the corresponding geologic interpretation. To improve the depth resolution of the 3D gravity inversion, we propose an efficient inversion method in spherical coordinates based on a mixed smooth and focused regularization with depth-weighting functions. In the inversion, we also use the kernel matrix equivalence strategy and the fast kernel-vector multiplication method based on a fast Fourier transform in each iteration to increase computational efficiency. Two synthetic inversion examples indicate that the proposed method can recover more complex density structures compared with the often used smooth-constraint inversion approach. Finally, the proposed inversion approach is applied to the latest lunar gravitational field model GL1500E to study the 3D density structures of the Moscoviense Basin. The inverted results indicate that the density structure with high-positive anomalies is principally distributed at depths ranging from 5 to 70 km, forming a giant asymmetrical high-density structure inclining from the southwest to the northeast. We may conclude that the Moscoviense Basin was formed by the double impact, where the second collision occurred in the southwest of the basin center of the first collision.