Quasi-Newton algorithm using Fresnel wavepaths and frequency increase for P-wave tomography inversion: application to a landslide in the South French Alps

Abstract

EGU2012-4323During last decases, geophysical methods have become of a great interest in geomorphological studies. Because they are well adapted to retrieve geological structures as variations in the spatial and temporal dimensions of rocks properties, they were widely developed for improving landslides understanding. Landslide studies generally involve the use of several geophysical methods, but among them, seismic surveys are well adapted to identify the slope's main structures. The wave propagation being mainly controlled by elastic properties of the medium, this method makes the interpretation easier since results are often well correlated with geotechnical observations. More generally, it provides information on the mechanical state of the soils with an acceptable spatial resolution. This structure is of first importance when studying clayey landslides as the Super-Sauze one. It occurred in the 1960s with the falls of large blocks and has developed continually covering an intact paleotopography. This succession of crests and gullies has been studied by geotechnical measurement and geophysics. It plays a large role in the behavior of the flow by delimiting preferential water and material pathways and compartments with different kinematics, mechanical and hydro dynamical characteristics. For the first time, a 3D geological model has been created from the fusion of multi-source data by Travelletti and Malet (2011), but it appears that geophysical methods can't capture the sharp geometry of the paleotopography. To improve such models and the numerical modeling resulting we propose a Quasi-Newton algorithm based on the Fresnel-wavepath and the frequency increase to the invert P-wave velocity fiel