Two-dimensional inversion of magnetotelluric data with consecutive use of conjugate gradient and least-squares solution with singular value decomposition algorithms

I investigated the two‐dimensional magnetotelluric data inversion algorithms in studying two significant aspects within a linearized inversion approach. The first one is the method of minimization and second one is the type of stabilizing functional used in parametric functionals. The results of two well‐known inversion algorithms, namely conjugate gradient and the least‐squares solution with singular value decomposition, were compared in terms of accuracy and CPU time. In addition, magnetotelluric data inversion with various stabilizers, such as L2‐norm, smoothing, minimum support, minimum gradient support and first‐order minimum entropy, were examined. A new inversion algorithm named least‐squares solution with singular value decomposition and conjugate gradient is suggested in seeing the outcomes of the comparisons carried out on least‐squares solutions with singular value decomposition and conjugate gradient algorithms subject to a variety of stabilizers. Inversion results of synthetic data showed that the newly suggested algorithm yields better results than those of the individual implementations of conjugate gradient and least‐squares solution with singular value decomposition algorithms. The suggested algorithm and the above‐mentioned algorithms inversion results for the field data collected along a line crossing the North Anatolian Fault zone were also compared each other and results are discussed.