On the forward modelling of three-dimensional magnetotelluric data using a radial-basis-function-based mesh-free method

Abstract

SUMMARY The investigation of using a novel radial-basis-function-based mesh-free method for forward modelling magnetotelluric data is presented. The mesh-free method, which can be termed as radial-basis-function-based finite difference (RBF-FD), uses only a cloud of unconnected points to obtain the numerical solution throughout the computational domain. Unlike mesh-based numerical methods (e.g. grid-based finite difference, finite volume and finite element), the mesh-free method has the unique feature that the discretization of the conductivity model can be decoupled from the discretization used for numerical computation, thus avoiding traditional expensive mesh generation and allowing complicated geometries of the model be easily represented. To accelerate the computation, unstructured point discretization with local refinements is employed. Maxwell’s equations in the frequency domain are re-formulated using $\mathbf {A}$-ψ potentials in conjunction with the Coulomb gauge condition, and are solved numerically with a direct solver to obtain magnetotelluric responses. A major obstacle in applying common mesh-free methods in modelling geophysical electromagnetic data is that they are incapable of reproducing discontinuous fields such as the discontinuous electric field over conductivity jumps, causing spurious solutions. The occurrence of spurious, or non-physical, solutions when applying standard mesh-free methods is removed here by proposing a novel mixed scheme of the RBF-FD and a Galerkin-type weak-form treatment in discretizing the equations. The RBF-FD is applied to the points in uniform conductivity regions, whereas the weak-form treatment is introduced to points located on the interfaces separating different homogeneous conductivity regions. The effectiveness of the proposed mesh-free method is validated with two numerical examples of modelling the magnetotelluric responses over 3-D conductivity models.