JUNE 10, 2015

MATHEMATICAL TOOLS
APPLIED IN GEOPHYSICS
303-ASSIGNMENT

ABDUL WAHAB KHAN

MSC. GEOPHYSICS (1ST SEMS)

TABLE OF CONTENTS
CONTENT
PREFACE
AKNOWLEDGEMENT
MATH FOR LIFE
SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHEMATICS IN GEOPHYSICS
1. VECTOR ANALYSIS
1.1 VECTOR AND SCALAR FIELDS
1.2 VECTOR DIFFRENTIATION
1.2.1 GRADIENT
1.2.2 DIVERGENCE
1.2.3 CURL
1.3 VECTOR INTEGRATION
1.3.1 LINE INTEGRALS
1.3.2 SURFACE INTEGRALS
1.3.3 VOLUME INTEGRALS
1.3.4 DIVERGENCE THEOREM OF GUASS
1.3.5 STOKES THEOREM
1.3.6 GREENS THEOREM

2. CURVILLINEAR CO-ORDINATE SYSTEMS

2.1 ORTHOGONAL CURVILLINEAR SYSTEMS
3. MATRICES,EIGENVALUES AND EIGENVECTORS
3.1 MATRICES & LINEAR SYSTEM OF EQUATIONS
3.2 LINEAR TRANSFORMATION
3.3 GUASS ELIMINATION
3.4 EIGENVALUE PROBLEMS IN SEISMIC
4. COMPLEX ANALYSIS
4.1 USE OF COMPLEX NUMBERS IN SEISMIC
4.2 COMPLEX FUNCTIONS
4.2.1 ANALYCITY OF A FUNCTION
4.2.2 CAUCHY-RIEMANN EQUATIONS
4.2.3 LAPLACE EQUATION
5. FOURIER ANALYSIS
5.1 FOURIER SERIES
5.2 FOURIER TRANSFORM
5.3 LAPLACE TRANSFORM
5.4 UNIT STEP FUNCTION
CONCLUSION

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PREFACE

Mathematics has played and continues to play a

critical role

in expanding

fields of

science

and

technology because of the basic requirement that

research needs to be able to quantify and accurately
evaluate the results of changes/advances in a field of
endeavor.

The booklet in hand attempts to orient the reader

with the above-mentioned in geophysics in a crisp and
brief manner. Brevity demanded intricate and complex
mathematical

formulae

to

be

avoided

so

this

composition tends to be more theoretical. However, care

is taken that brevity does not take its toll on clarity of
the subject.

A.W. Khan
b

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The survivability of human race is dependent on the
awareness, familiarity, and understanding of the world
around

us.

Such

knowledge

is

constantly

being

communicated to successive generations. Thus, all the

advances that were thought impossible once, are credited to
our teachers who play a vital role in the transmission of
knowledge.

I owe special gratitude to Dr. Amir Ali who made

mathematics an adequate, richer and engaging experience
for me. His devoted teaching has polished my intuitive
abilities and understanding of mathematical problems.
I pray to Allah, to bestow me with the strength to pass on
the torch of knowledge in the same well-disposed fashion in
which it was given to me. Ameen.

MATH FOR LIFE

Mathematics is an indispensable subject of study. It
plays an important role in forming the basis of all other
sciences which deal with the material substance of space
and time.
Mathematics may be described as the fundamental
science. It may be broadly described as the science of space,
time and number. The universe exists in space and time,
and is constituted of units of matter. To calculate the
extension or composition of matter in space and time and to
compute the units that make up the total mass of the
material universe is the object of Mathematics. For the
space-time quantum is everywhere full of matter and we
have to know matter mathematically in the first instance.
Knowledge of mathematics is absolutely necessary for
the study of the physical sciences. Computation and
calculation are the bases of all studies that deal with matter
in any form.
Even the physician who has to study biological cells and
bacilli need to have a knowledge of Mathematics, if he means

to reduce the margin of error which alone can make his

diagnosis dependable.
To the mechanic and the engineer it is a constant guide
and help, and without exact knowledge of Mathematics, they
cannot proceed one step in coming to grips with any
complicated problem.
Be

it

the

airplane

or

the

atom

bomb,

radio-

communication or nuclear power, anything that has to do

with anything concerning matter in any form, a knowledge
of the principles of Mathematics is the one thing absolutely
necessary.
Of course, it goes without saying that an elementary
knowledge

of

the

simplest

branch

of

Mathematics,

arithmetic, is the daily requirement of every man and woman

in the ordinary affairs of life.

SIGNIFICANCE OF MATHS IN
GEOPYHSICS
Mathematical models and inversion are used for
processing and interpretation of the data acquired through
geophysical methods. One of the main tasks of geophysics is
to reveal the structure of the earth quantitatively. In this
task the field measurements are always the starting point.
In addition, theoretical responses obtained by numerical
modelling of realistic earth models are needed. Finally, by
comparing the field data and the model responses,
quantitative statement of the structure of the earth can be
made by solving the geophysical inverse problem. Numerical
modelling

and

inversion

are

an

important

area

of

geophysical research. It is safe to say that geophysics is a

highly

computational

Mathematical

fact.

Geophysics.

This

is

also

known

as

The

various

areas

of

mathematical geophysics are stated below:

GEOPHYSICAL FLUID DYNAMICS

Geophysical fluid dynamics develops the theory of fluid
dynamics for the atmosphere, ocean and Earth's interior.
Applications include geodynamics and the theory of the
geodynamo.
GEOPHYSICAL INVERSE THEORY
Geophysical inverse theory is concerned with analyzing
geophysical data to get model parameters. It is concerned
with the question: What can be known about the Earth's
interior from measurements on the surface? Generally there
are limits on what can be known even in the ideal limit of
exact data.
The goal of inverse theory is to determine the spatial
distribution of some variable (for example, density or seismic
wave velocity). The distribution determines the values of an
observable at the surface (for example, gravitational
acceleration for density). There must be a forward model
predicting the surface observations given the distribution of
this variable.
Applications include geomagnetism, magnetotellurics
and seismology.
g

FRACTALS AND COMPLEXITY

Many geophysical data sets have spectra that follow a
power law, meaning that the frequency of an observed
magnitude varies as some power of the magnitude. An
example is the distribution of earthquake magnitudes; small
earthquakes are far more common than large earthquakes.
This is often an indicator that the data sets have an
underlying fractal geometry. Fractal sets have a number of
common features, including structure at many scales,
irregularity, and self-similarity (they can be split into parts
that look much like the whole). The manner in which these
sets can be divided determine the Hausdorff dimension of
the set, which is generally different from the more familiar
topological dimension. Fractal phenomena are associated
with chaos, self-organized criticality and turbulence.

DATA ASSIMILATION
Data assimilation combines numerical models of
geophysical systems with observations that may be irregular
in space and time. Many of the applications involve
h

geophysical fluid dynamics. Fluid dynamic models are

governed by a set of partial differential equations. For these
equations to make good predictions, accurate initial
conditions are needed. However, often the initial conditions
are not very well known. Data assimilation methods allow
the models to incorporate later observations to improve the
initial conditions. Data assimilation plays an increasingly
important role in weather forecasting.

GEOPHYSICAL STATISTICS
Some statistical problems come under the heading of
mathematical geophysics, including model validation and
quantifying uncertainty.

1. VECTOR ANALYSIS
Vector analysis is a powerful tool to formulate equations
of motions of particles and then solve them in mechanics
and engineering, or field equations of electrodynamics.
Geophysical methods are based upon studying the
propagation of different physical fields within the earths
interior. Whether its electromagnetic method or seismic, we
study and analyze the various vector and scalar quantities
associated with them. Hence, vector analysis is highly
applicable in the data processing and interpretation of
geophysical methods.

1.1 SCALAR AND VECTOR FIELDS

The study of scalar and vector fields is applicable in
various methods, most importantly in electromagnetic,
seismic and gravity. As a geophysicist one has to work with
vectors like velocity, area, fluid flow, temperature, density,
magnetic induction, gravity, stress and strain; all of which
can be classified as scalars, vectors or tensors.
In the coming text, I will be throwing light on the various
tools of vector analysis i.e. vector operators and where they
are applicable.

Figure 1. A vector field on a sphere

1

1.2 VECTOR DIFFRENTIATION

Certain differential operations may be performed on
scalar and vector fields and have wide-ranging
applications in the physical sciences. The most important
are those of finding the gradient of a scalar field and curl
and divergence of a vector field. It is usual to define these
operators strictly from a mathematical point of view but
here I would tap into their geometric properties which rely
on the concept of integrating vector quantities along lines
and over surfaces and their applications.

1.2.1 GRADIENT
The gradient of a scalar field is a vector that points in
the direction of greatest increase. Its magnitude
represents the magnitude of that increase.
This is useful in electromagnetics. One of the properties
of a conservative vector field (such as the electrostatic
field) is that it can be expressed as the gradient of a scalar
field. The intensity of an electrostatic field, for example, is
related to the gradient of a scalar field that we call voltage.
In many cases, since the voltage is a number and not a
vector, it is easier to solve a problem for voltage.

Figure 2. The values of the function are represented in black and white,
black representing higher values, and its corresponding gradient is represented
by arrows.
2

1.2.2 DIVERGENCE
In vector calculus, divergence is a vector operator that
measures the magnitude of a vector field's source or sink
at a given point, in terms of a signed scalar. More
technically, the divergence represents the volume density
of the outward flux of a vector field from an infinitesimal
volume around a given point.
In physical terms, by calculating divergence we
calculate the extent to which the vector field flow behaves
like a source or a sink at a given point. It is a local measure
of its "outgoingness"the extent to which there is more
exiting an infinitesimal region of space than entering it. If
the divergence is nonzero at some point then there must
be a source or sink at that position. (Note that we are
imagining the vector field to be like the velocity vector field
of a fluid (in motion) when we use the terms flow, sink and
so on.)

Figure 3. An illustration of divergence

3

1.2.3 CURL
In vector calculus, the curl is a vector operator that
describes the infinitesimal rotation of a 3-dimensional
vector field. At every point in the field, the curl of that point
is represented by a vector. The attributes of this vector
(length and direction) characterize the rotation at that
point.
The direction of the curl is the axis of rotation, as
determined by the right-hand rule, and the magnitude of
the curl is the magnitude of rotation. If the vector field
represents the flow velocity of a moving fluid, then the curl
is the circulation density of the fluid. A vector field whose
curl is zero is called irrotational.
.

Figure 3. Comparison of rotational and irrotational fields

1.3 VECTOR INTEGRATION

Vector integration is the inverse of vector
differentiation. Just like vector differentiation which is
of great utility, vector integration also holds key to
solving many geophysical problems and modelling. The
application of integration operators is given below:

1.3.1 LINE INTEGRAL

The main application of line integrals is finding the work
done on an object in a force field.
A line-integral method is employed for computing the
gravimetric effects of two-dimensional masses. Line
integrals are used for the gravity anomaly of a rectangular
prism with 3D variable density contrast.
A line integral can also be used to calculate the flow
across a curve.

1.3.2 SURFACE INTEGRAL

Surface Integrals are also known as the Flux Integrals.
They are applied to find the flux in fluid dynamics or
simply to find the area under the curve.
Surface integrals have applications in the classical
theory of electromagnetism as well so they are used in
processing electromagnetic data too.

1.3.3 VOLUME INTEGRAL

We used a double integral to integrate over a twodimensional region and so it shouldnt be too surprising
that well use a triple integral to integrate over a three
dimensional region. Volume integrals are used to calculate
the flux densities.
5

1.3.4 DIVERGENCE THEOREM OF GUASS

It is of great importance in electrostatics and fluid
dynamics. For a geophysicist in provides a link between
the flow (that is, flux) of a vector field through a surface to
the behavior of the vector field inside the surface.
Also if the parameters of the surface are known to the
scientist. He/she can calculate the behavior inside the
enclosed surface.

1.3.5 STOKES THEOREM

If you don't mind specializing Stokes theorem to Green's
theorem, then one of the most practical applications is
computation of the area of a region by integrating around
its contour.

1.3.6 GREENS THEOREM

Green's theorem gives the relationship between a line
integral around a simple closed curve C and a double
integral over the plane region D bounded by C. It is named
after George Green and is the two-dimensional special
case of the more general KelvinStokes theorem.
One of the simplest to build real-world application of
Green's Theorem is the Planimeter.

2. CURVILINEAR COORDINATES
The idea behind using a different coordinate system is to
make the problem you are solving as simple as possible. If
you use a system that is not helpful, you will wind up
doing more work than necessary. Symmetry considerations
will normally dictate which system to use.
By selecting a suitable curvilinear coordinate system for
the given problem, we find ease in observing and predicting
the behavior and properties.
Curvilinear coordinates are a coordinate system for
Euclidean space in which the coordinate lines may be
curved. These coordinates may be derived from a set of
Cartesian coordinates by using a transformation that is
locally invertible (a one-to-one map) at each point.

Figure 4. Curvilinear Co-ordinate Systems

2.1 ORTHOGONAL CURVILINEAR COORDINATES

These co-ordinate systems are characterized by the fact
that their co-ordinate axes are perpendicular to each
other.
Their specialty is that Laplace's equation and the
Helmholtz differential equation are separable in all of
these coordinate systems.

3. MATRICES, EIGENVALUES &

EIGENVECTORS
3.1 MATRICES AND LINEAR SYSTEMS
Matrices are used for solving linear systems of
equations.
Linear systems are useful to geophysicists because of
linear inversion. The deterministic nature of linear inversion
requires a functional relationship which models, in terms of
the earth model parameters, the seismic variable to be
inverted. This functional relationship is some mathematical
model derived from the fundamental laws of physics and is
more often called a forward model. The aim of the technique
is to minimize a function which is dependent on the
difference between the convolution of the forward model with
a source wavelet and the field collected seismic trace. As in
the field of optimization, this function to be minimized is
called the objective function and in convectional inverse
modeling, is simply the difference between the convolved
forward model and the seismic trace. Different types of
variables can be inverted for but for clarity, these variables
are referred to as the impedance series of the earth model.

3.2 LINEAR TRANSFORMATION

Linear transformation help geophysicist in seismic
method. Identification and quantification of shear-wave
splitting in seismic data can provide information about the
internal structure of a reservoir including fracture intensity
and fracture orientation.
9

3.3 GUASS ELIMINATION

We have established the significance of linear equations
in the above text for geophysical methods. In linear algebra,
Gaussian elimination (also known as row reduction) is an
algorithm for solving systems of linear equations. It is
usually understood as a sequence of operations performed
on the associated matrix of coefficients. This method can
also be used to find the rank of a matrix, to calculate the
determinant of a matrix, and to calculate the inverse of an
invertible square matrix.

3.3 EIGENVALUE PROBLEMS IN SEISMIC

METHOD
Eigenvalues and Eigenvectors help us in solving
anisotropic problems and seismic wave equations.
They allow us to calculate the behavior of waves in each
layer of anisotropic earth.

Figure 5. The varying velocities are calculated by eigenvectors and eigenvalues

10

One of the most important stages in seismic

interpretation is picking especial horizons in order to
detect their underground downward and upward
movements in an oilfield. Background noise, however,
causes many difficulties to this end. Considering a narrow
window of a seismic section whose reflectors are nearly
horizontal and applying a multivariate statistical method
called Principal Component Analysis, we find the largest
eigenvalue that has the most contribution in variance of
data. Lower eigenvalues are subject to noise. Projecting
data onto eigenvector associated with the largest
eigenvalue, we obtain a trace with sharper peaks and
troughs. This trace is used to create synthetic section to
improve horizon picking especially in the case that well log
data is not available. This method provides synthetic
seismic data and obtains a trace with significantly
attenuated noise.

11

4. COMPLEX ANALYSIS
Complex analysis, traditionally known as the theory of
functions of a complex variable, is the branch of
mathematical analysis that investigates functions of
complex numbers. It is useful in many branches of
mathematics, including algebraic geometry, number theory,
applied mathematics; as well as in physics, including
hydrodynamics and thermodynamics and also in
engineering fields such as nuclear, aerospace, mechanical
and electrical engineering.

4.1 USE OF COMPLEX NUMBERS IN SEISMIC

METHOD
In the seismic method, when the angle of incidence
exceeds the critical angle, Snells law does not hold then as
the equations provide no real solution. In such cases we
have to introduce imaginary numbers for the processing and
interpretation of our experiment.

Figure6. Seismic wave reflection beyond critical angle

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4.2 COMPLEX FUNCTIONS

A complex function is one in which the independent
variable and the dependent variable are both complex
numbers. More precisely, a complex function is a function
whose domain and range are subsets of the complex plane.

4.2.1 ANALYTICITY OF A COMPLEX FUNCTION

Complex analysis is particularly concerned with
analytic functions of complex variables (or, more generally,
meromorphic functions). Because the separate real and
imaginary parts of any analytic function must satisfy
Laplace's equation, complex analysis is widely applicable to
two-dimensional problems in geophysics.
The exceptional importance of the class of analytic
functions is due to the following reasons. First, the class is
sufficiently large; it includes the majority of functions which
are encountered in the principal problems of mathematics
and its applications to science and technology. Secondly, the
class of analytic functions is closed with respect to the
fundamental operations of arithmetic, algebra and analysis.
Finally, an important property of an analytic function is its
uniqueness: Each analytic function is an "organically
connected whole", which represents a "unique" function
throughout its natural domain of existence.

4.2.2 CAUCHY-RIEMANN EQUATIONS

Most important equations in complex analysis as they
provide a criterion for checking the analyticity of a function.

13

4.3.2 LAPLACE EQUATION

The solutions of Laplace's equation are in terms of
harmonic functions, which are important in many fields of
science, notably the fields of electromagnetism, astronomy,
and fluid dynamics, because they can be used to accurately
describe the behavior of electric, gravitational, and fluid
potentials. Hence this equation has many applications in
geophysical methods because we study the behavior of
various fields and vectors.

14

5. FOURIER AND LAPLACE

TRANSFORMS
When earth material properties are constant in any of the
cartesian variables (t,x,y,z) then it is useful to Fourier
transform (FT) that variable.
In seismology, the earth does not change with time (the
ocean does!) so for the earth, we can generally gain by
Fourier transforming the time axis thereby converting timedependent differential equations (hard) to algebraic
equations (easier) in frequency (temporal frequency).
In seismology, the earth generally changes rather strongly
with depth, so we cannot usefully Fourier transform the
depth z axis and we are stuck with differential equations in
z. On the other hand, we can model a layered earth where
each layer has material properties that are constant in z.
Then we get analytic solutions in layers and we need to patch
them together.

5.1 FOURIER SERIES

In mathematics, a Fourier series is a way to
represent a wave-like function as the sum of simple
sine waves. More formally, it decomposes any periodic
function or periodic signal into the sum of a (possibly
infinite) set of simple oscillating functions, namely
sines and cosines (or, equivalently, complex
exponentials).
In seismic experiments the result obtained is graph
which is too complex to study, by applying the above
15

mentioned we turn it into components of sine and cos

for easy processing and interpretation.

Figure 7. A wave is broken down into 3 cos components

5.2 FOURIER TRANSFORM

Fourier transform transforms time domain to frequency
domain.
Fourier transform are used in many areas of geophysics
such as image processing, time series analysis, and
antenna design.

Figure 8. Fourier Transform in action

Fourier transforms is also used for solving linear partial

differential equations (PDE).
16

In seismic tomography, Fourier transform technique is

used. The Fourier projection theorem states that the 2-D
(3-D) Fourier transform of an image or medium can be
obtained from the 1-D (2-D) Fourier transforms of the
projections. Thus, by measuring the projection of the
object and constructing the 2-D (3-D) transform space
accordingly, then inverse 2-D (3-D) Fourier transforming,
an image of the object may be reconstructed. A major
difficulty with this reconstruction is that it requires a
complete (all the way around the objects) set of
projections.

5.3 LAPLACE TRANSFORM

Laplace transform is an integral transform method
which is particularly useful in solving linear ordinary
differential equations. It finds very wide applications in
various areas of physics, electrical engineering, control
engineering, optics, mathematics and signal processing.
The Laplace transform can be interpreted as a
transformation from the time domain where inputs and
outputs are functions of time to the frequency domain
where inputs and outputs are functions of complex
angular frequency.

5.4 UNIT STEP FUNCTION

.
Unit step function is used to remove noise in seismic.
The unit function is also use to write piecewise define
function in a compact form.

17

CONCLUSION
Effort is made to cover most of the applications of
various mathematical tools that were taught during the first
semester. Care was taken to justify both the uses in general
mathematics and those particular of the geophysical
methods. The assignment does not cover the mathematicalsolving of the tools mentioned above, it was not intended to
do so too. It is hoped that it truly serves as a good orientation
to the unfamiliar reader of the mathematical methods
involved in geophysics.

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