Joint three-dimensional inversion of magnetotelluric and magnetovariational data

The problem of quantitative three-dimensional interpretation of the magnetotelluric (MT) data ranks among the most difficult problems in electromagnetic (EM) geophysics. Our paper presents a new rigorous numerical method for MT inversion, based on the integral equations technique. An important feature of the proposed method is the calculation of the Frechet derivative with the aid of a quasi-analytical approximation with an inhomogeneous background. This approach simplifies the algorithm of inversion and requires only a single forward modeling on each iteration. We have also developed a method for a joint inversion of MT and magnetovariational (MV) data. We show in the present paper that the joint inversion of MT impedances and the Wiese-Parkinson vectors can automatically allow for the static shift in the observed data, which is caused by the geoelectric inhomogeneities contained in the near-surface layer.