compaction, stratigraphic layering, facies change, ce-
mentation, diagenesis, tectonic history are responsible
for the variation in density of sedimentary rocks with
depth. Sometimes, it is possible to explain this variation
of density with depth by simple mathematical density
functions and hence, reliable results can be obtained by
considering a variable density in the interpretational
procedures. Cordell (1973), Granser (1987), Chai and
Hinze (1988) simulated the decrease in density contrast
of sedimentary rocks with depth by an exponential
density-depth function. However, no closed form
theoretical gravity expressions can be developed in the
space domain with an exponential density function.
Bhaskara Rao (1986) made use of a quadratic density
function to ascribe the density variation of sedimentary
rocks with depth. Ruotoistenmaki (1992), Garcia-
Abdeslem (1992) also utilized the concept of variable
density in their interpretational techniques. While
explaining the drawbacks of the quadratic density
function, Chakravarthi and Rao (1993) introduced a
parabolic density function to explain the decrease in
density contrast of sedimentary rocks with depth and
successfully adopted the density function in their
modeling scheme to interpret the gravity anomalies of
sedimentary basins. Chakravarthi (1994) made use of
this density function to interpret the gravity anomalies
of non-outcropping sedimentary basins. Later, Viswes-
wara Rao et al. (1994) adopted the density function to
derive a theoretical gravity expression of a two-dimen-
sional arbitrary-shaped body by approximating the
outline of the body as an N-sided polygon. Such an
expression can be used to compute the theoretical
gravity anomalies of sedimentary basins with parabolic
density contrast (PDC ) by specifying the co-ordinates of
the polygon as a part of input (forward modeling).
However, the practical utility of this forward model-
ing scheme is limited in the sense that the depth
ordinates of the floor of a sedimentary basin are not
known a priori to compute the theoretical gravity
anomalies. In practice, one has to solve the inverse
problem i.e., to find out the depth values of the floor of a
sedimentary basin from the observed gravity anomalies.
In the present paper, we present an inversion scheme
INVER2DBASE to compute the basement depths of
density interfaces above which the density contrast is
assumed to vary with depth. We have adopted the
Marquardt’s (1963) algorithm in the inversion scheme.
2. Forward modeling of a two-dimensional arbitrary
shaped body with PDC
2.1. Parabolic density function
Chakravarthi and Rao (1993) initially introduced the
parabolic density function and later on, simplified to the
form (Visweswara Rao et al., 1994),
DrðzÞ¼
Dr
3
0
ðDr
0
azÞ
2
; ð1Þ
where DrðzÞ is the density contrast of a section of a
sedimentary column at any depth z, Dr
0
is the density
contrast observed at the ground surface i.e., at z ¼ 0 and
a is a constant.
The analytical gravity expression Dgð0Þ at any point
pð0Þ on the principal profile of a two-dimensional
arbitrary shaped body with PDC is given by (Viswes-
wara Rao et al., 1994),
Dgð0Þ¼
X
N
k¼1
dgðkÞ; ð2Þ
where dgðkÞ is the gravity contribution of the kth side of
the polygon given by,
dgðkÞ¼2G
u
Dr
3
0
f
0
kþ1
as2
f
0
k
as1
þ
BðT2 T1Þ
2Aa
C sin i
A
ln
S2r
k
S1r
kþ1
: ð3Þ
Here
S1 ¼ Dr
0
az
k
;
S2 ¼ Dr
0
az
kþ1
;
R ¼ððx
kþ1
x
k
Þ
2
ðz
kþ1
z
k
Þ
2
Þ
1=2
;
sin i ¼ðz
kþ1
z
k
Þ=R;
cos i ¼ðx
kþ1
x
k
Þ=R;
C ¼ x
k
sin i z
k
cos i;
A ¼ C
2
a
2
þ 2Dr
0
aC cos i þ Dr
2
0
;
B ¼2Ca cos i 2Dr
0
;
T1 ¼ arctanððz
k
þ C cos iÞ=C sin iÞ;
T2 ¼ arctanððz
kþ1
þ C cos iÞ=C sin iÞ
and
r
k
¼ðx
2
k
þ z
2
k
Þ
1=2
;
r
kþ1
¼ðx
2
kþ1
þ z
2
kþ1
Þ
1=2
;
f
0
k
¼ P=2 f
k
;
f
0
kþ1
¼ P=2 f
kþ1
are explained in Fig. 1. G
u
is the Universal Gravitational
Constant.
Here f
k
, f
kþ1
are the angles made at the point of
calculation by the radial vector r
k
and r
kþ1
, of the
vertices of the kth side of the polygon with the principal
profile. It can be noted that by putting a ¼ 0 in Eq. (1),
V. Chakravarthi et al. / Computers & Geosciences 27 (2001) 1127–11331128
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