Computers & Geosciences 76 (2015) 18–30

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Computers & Geosciences

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cageo

2D inverse modeling for potential fields on rugged observation surface

using constrained Delaunay triangulation
Shuang Liu a, Xiangyun Hu a,n, Yufei Xi b, Tianyou Liu a
a
Institute of Geophysics and Geomatics, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
b
The Institute of Hydrogeology and Environmental Geology, CAGS, Shijiazhuang 050061, China

art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The regular grid discretization is prevalent in the inverse modeling for gravity and magnetic data.
Received 6 June 2014 However, this subdivision strategy performs lower precision to represent the rugged observation surface.
Received in revised form To deal with this problem, we evaluate a non-structured discretization method in which the subsurface
23 November 2014
with rolling terrain is divided into numbers of Delaunay triangular cells and each mesh has the uniform
Accepted 26 November 2014
physical property distributions. The gravity and magnetic anomalies of a complex-shaped anomalous
Available online 29 November 2014
body are represented as the summaries of the single anomaly produced by each triangle field source.
Keywords: When inverting for the potential field data, we specify a minimization objective function composed of
Gravity and magnetic anomalies data constraints and then use the preconditioned conjugate gradient algorithm to iteratively solve the
Inverse modeling
matrix minimization equations, where the preconditioner is determined by the distances between tri-
Constrained Delaunay triangulation
angular cells and surface observers. We test our method using synthetic data; all tests return favorable
Rugged topography
Deep resources results. In the case studies involving the gravity and magnetic anomalies of the Mengku and Pobei de-
posits in Xinjiang, northwest China, the inferred magnetite orebodies and ultrabasic rocks distributions
are verified by the additional drilling and geological information. The discretization of constrained De-
launay triangulation provides an useful approach of computing and inverting the potential field data on
the situations of undulate topography and complicated objects.
& 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction inverted the magnetic data of high-susceptibility bodies using fi-

The recovery of density and susceptibility distributions is a
focus issue in the inversion of potential fields because of its better
capacity of representing the complicated geological structures
compared with the parametric inversion. Resembling resistivity
and seismic tomography, the physical property inversion needs to
divide the subsurface into large numbers of mesh cells with con-
stant magnetism (or density). Then the physical properties of cells
are solved by optimizing objective function thereby deriving the
physical properties distributions within the subsurface. At present,
the regular rectangular (2D) and hexahedron (3D) grids are gen-
eral preferred such as Li and Oldenburg (1996, 1998, 2003), they
carried out the 3D gravity and magnetic inversion and the joint
inversion of surface and borehole magnetic data by cutting the 3D
subsurface into cuboid cells and the observation surfaces in the
synthetic and real examples were assumed to be horizontal. Si-
multaneously, when Lelièvre and Oldenburg (2006) computed and
n
Corresponding author. Tel.: þ 86 27 6788 3592; fax: þ 86 27 6788 3251.
E-mail addresses: laushua@foxmail.com (S. Liu), xyhu@cug.edu.cn (X. Hu),
xiyufei2008@gmail.com (Y. Xi), liuty@cug.edu.cn (T. Liu).
nite volume method; Pilkington (1997) used the preconditioned
conjugate gradient (PCG) algorithm to solve the matrix equations;
Portniaguine and Zhdanov (1999, 2002) presented the image fo-
cusing techniques based on the minimum gradient support func-
tions; Fedi (2007) proposed the depth from extreme points
method (DEXP); Yao et al. (2003, 2007) implemented stochastic
inversion methods such as genetic algorithms and stochastic
subspaces to search for the optimal solutions, they all divided the
subsurface into many regular grids or the observation surface was
assumed to be horizontal. The scholars favored the regular grid
subdivisions due to the convenience of algorithm implementation
and the simpler magnetic and gravity formulas. However, the
rectangular and hexahedron divisions are more convenient to
describe the non-fluctuating terrain. If the observation surface is
rugged, regular discretization will produce larger error than other
non-structured discretization methods. Another strategy to deal
with the undulate terrain is to induce the gravity and magnetic
anomaly to a horizontal plane and then use the regular division
methods (Yao et al., 2003). However, this process of potential fields
increases the computational loads and also brings some new er-
rors (Liu et al., 2006, 2007; Xu and Yu, 2007; Chen et al., 2009).
In the inverse modeling for potential field data, there remains

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cageo.2014.11.010
0098-3004/& 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 S. Liu et al. / Computers & Geosciences 76 (2015) 18–30 19

Fig. 1. Four discretization approaches: (a) regular division; (b) octree-mesh discretization; (c) Cartesian gird and (d) triangulation.

four common discretization approaches to deal with the rugged 2. Methodology

surface (Fig. 1). The rectangular division judges the near surface
cell belonging to the Earth or air according to the two parts' areas 2.1. Constrained Delaunay triangulation (CDT)
cut by the topographical line (Fig. 1a). As mentioned-above, this
method is widely applied in geophysical modeling but it produces The Delaunay triangulation (DT) includes 2D triangulation and
large error to describe the irregular terrain. Based on the regular 3D tessellation. Because the DT is the straight-line dual of the
discretization, an improved approach of octree-mesh division is Voronoi diagram, we discuss the DT beginning with the Voronoi
proposed and it has been primarily used in geophysics for non- diagram. Given a set of points in Euclid plain
linear inversion such as electromagnetics (Ascher and Haber, V = {v1, v2, …, vN }, N ≥ 3, (1)
2001; Haber and Heldmann, 2007) and large-scale earthquake fi-
nite elements modeling (Kim et al., 2002; Bielak et al., 2005). Davis where the points are non-collinear and non-concyclic. If x is a
and Li (2013) also used octree-mesh to invert large scale airborne point in the plain, the range
magnetic survey datasets. The octree-mesh discretization further
divides the surface cells, thereby realizing the accurate re- {
V(i) = x ∈ E2 d(x, vi) ≤ d(x, vj), i, j = 1, 2, ⋯N , i ≠ j } (2)
presentation of fluctuant terrain (Fig. 1b). A different approach is defined as a Voronoi polygon, where d(x, vi) is the Euclid dis-
which is gaining popularity in the numerical simulation of fluid tance between points x and vi. The boundaries of all such polygons
dynamics and structural mechanics is the so-called Cartesian grid form the so-called Voronoi diagram (Fig. 2a). The Voronoi diagram
method where the governing equations are discretized on a Car- also can be deemed as a plot that the points, as the central of the
tesian grid which does not conform to the immersed boundaries growth, are expanding with the same speed until the edges are
(Ye et al., 1999; McCorquodale et al., 2001; Udaykumar et al., 2001) encountered. Regardless the outermost layer points producing the
(Fig. 1c). The final strategy is the non-structured triangulation open areas, other points form the convex polygons.
(TIN) such as constrained Delaunay triangulation (CDT) (Fig. 1d). Hence, by joining these growing centers, we obtain a grid
This kind of non-structured modeling is widely applied in elec- composed of so-called Delaunay triangulation (DT) (Fig. 2b). The
tromagnetic modeling (Viezzoli et al., 2008; Key and Ovall, 2011; DT has two important properties: (a) empty circle, namely each
Ren et al., 2013), seismic modeling (Gudmundsson and Sambridge, circumcircle of triangle does not contain any points of Voronoi set;
1998; Böhm et al., 2000; Lelièvre et al., 2011), ocean modeling and (2) max–min angle, representing the minimal angle in the
(Piggott et al., 2008), mass movement modeling (Wilson, 2009). triangle network of Voronoi set is the largest one. The two prop-
Far fewer authors have performed inversion on unstructured erties decide that the DT has great applications. DT is the unique
meshes, such as Sambridge and Faletič (2003), Günther et al. and the best triangle network as Sibson (1978) suggested that
(2006), Stenerud et al. (2009), Lelièvre et al. (2011), Lelièvre and (with suitable modifications to deal with degeneracy) there is only
Farquharson (2013), and so on. one such triangulation, and that it is the DT. Lingas (1986) further
Delaunay triangulation (DT) is a set composed of some prox-
imate but non-overlapping triangle or tetrahedron cells. There is
not any points in the circumcircle of the triangles. It owns many
merits including the simple data structure, small data redundancy
and good harmony of topography and geology. It is a simple but
reasonable discretization strategy, which has been widely applied
in computer graphic, finite element analysis, engineering and
geological modeling (Vigo and Pla, 2000; Mulchrone, 2005; Ko-
lingerová and Žalik, 2006; Wu et al., 2011; Liu et al., 2014). In the
potential field data computation and inversion, Zhang and Hao
(2006) and Li et al. (2012) carried out the 2D and 3D gravity
modeling and computation, respectively. Jeshvaghani and Darijani
(2014) presented the finite element algorithm for forward mod-
eling of 2D magnetic structures based on CDT. In order to more
accurately invert the potential field data on the rugged surface, we
carry out the inversion based on the 2D constrained Delaunay
triangulation (CDT). We optimize the objective function and solve
the equations using the preconditioned conjugate gradient (PCG)
algorithm. We begin by explaining the CDT then detailed discuss
the potential field data forward and inverse modeling. Subse-
quently, we test our method using synthetic and real data. Finally, Fig. 2. A Voronoi diagram (a) and the corresponding Delaunay triangulation (b)
we conclude the paper with a brief discussion. (adapted from Chew (1989)).
20 S. Liu et al. / Computers & Geosciences 76 (2015) 18–30

proved that the DT can be efficiently implemented in the general

situations. Tsai (1993) indicated that DT is unique in the Euclid
plain with no more than three concyclic points.
When generating the DT of the rugged terrain and known-
shaped geology bodies, it needs to carry out the DT under con-
straint information namely the constrained Delaunay triangulation
(CDT). The simplest approach to deal with the constraints is the
encryption method. It encrypts the points in constrained edges
and transfer the constrained data into regular data before using
standard DT. Lots of algorithms of generating the CDT were pro-
posed. Tsai (1993) classified these algorithms into three categories
according to the procedures of triangulations: (1) divide-and-
conquer methods; (2) incremental insertion methods; and (3) gift-
wrapping methods (Cheng et al., 2012). In our work, we run the
existed MATLAB functions (i.e., initmesh, refinemesh and jiggle-
mesh) to create the triangular mesh (George, 1991). For example,
the CDT results of a rectangular prism on the rugged observation Fig. 3. Diagram of triangle cell.
surface are shown in Fig. 4a.

2.2. Forward modeling for gravity and magnetic fields gravity anomaly caused by the ith edge of the triangle, G is the
gravity constant, Δσ is the residual density, ( ξi, ζi) is the coordinate
There are many available methods for building 2D/3D geolo- of the ith triangle corner. Adding the gravity anomalies caused by
gical models by gravity and magnetic field data. For example, all triangle cells, the gravity anomalies (i.e., Δg) of the 2D arbitrary
Talwani (1965) approximated real sources by sets of stacked la- shape model are written as
mina for magnetic data and Plouff (1976) developed a closed-form NT
equation for the gravity anomaly of a finite-thickness horizontal Δg = ∑ Δgj ,
plate, which is useful for terrain corrections. Okabe (1979) devel- j=1 (4)
oped forward modeling techniques for gravity and magnetic
anomalies due to homogeneous polyhedral bodies. Jessell (2001) where NT is the number of the triangular cells. Similarly, as for the
reviewed different ways potential-field modeling systems to re- triangle ΔABC (Fig. 3) with effective magnetization intensity Ms
present the 3D structure of the Earth's crust. Tontini et al. (2009) and magnetization inclination is, the magnetic anomaly at ob-
showed a set of forward model equations in the Fourier domain for servation point O is given by (Zhang and Pan, 2004)
calculating the 3D gravity and magnetic anomalies of a given 3D ⎧ H = 2(M Q ′ − M P′)
a, j x z
distribution of density or magnetization. Pignatelli et al. (2011) ⎪
⎪
presented a MATLAB-based geopotential field generator called ⎨ Za . j = 2(MxQ + MzP) ,
⎪
GamField that constructed and visualized subsurface sources in 3D ⎪
⎩ j
ΔT = H cos I cos A + Z sin I
a, j a, j (5)
space and computes their gravity and magnetic effects. Tontini
(2012) implemented a MATLAB function for calculating magnetic where Ha,j, Za,j and ΔTj are the horizontal components, vertical
anomalies from a 3D distribution of magnetization and the for- components and total field anomalies, respectively, I and A are the
ward calculation engine is based on a 3D Fast Fourier Transform inclination of Earth's magnetic field and the magnetic azimuth of
computation, that gives accurate results in a very short computing the profile, and
time, making the use of this program particularly suitable for 3D
Mx = Ms cos is , Mz = Ms sin is ,
interactive modeling of observed magnetic anomalies. Jeshvaghani
and Darijani (2014) presented a fast and accurate adaptive finite
⎧ ⎫
element algorithm for forward modeling of 2D geomagnetic ⎪
(ζ − ζ )(ξ
− i +1 i i +1 i
− ξ)
⎪ (ζi + 1 − ζi)2 + (ξi + 1 − ξi)2
3 ( ξ ξ
tan−1 ζi − tan−1 ζi + 1
i i +1
)⎪⎪
structures based on numerical solution of the Laplace equation. Q = ∑⎨ ⎬,
Zhang and Hao (2006) carried out the 2D irregular gravity mod- ⎪
i=1 + 1 (ζi + 1 − ζi) 2 ξi2+ 1 + ζi2+ 1
ln 2 2 ⎪
⎪
⎩ 2 (ζi + 1 − ζi)2 + (ξi + 1 − ξi)2 ξi + ζi ⎪
⎭
eling and assumed that the internal density in each triangle is
linearly distributed. In our work, when forward modeling the
⎧ (ξi + 1 − ξi) 2 ⎫
gravity and magnetic anomalies based on the triangular dis-
cretization, the physical properties for each triangular cell are as-
⎪
⎪ (ζi + 1 − ζi)2 + (ξi + 1 − ξi)2
3 ( ξ
i
ξ
tan−1 ζi − tan−1 ζi + 1
i +1
)⎪⎪⎬
P = ∑⎨ ,
sumed to be homogeneous. So its expressions for gravity and ⎪ 1 (ζi + 1 − ζi)(ξ i + 1 − ξi) ξi2+ 1 + ζi2+ 1 ⎪
i=1 −
⎪ ln 2 2 ⎪
magnetic fields are derived from the fields of a 2D N-sided polygon ⎩ 2 (ζi + 1 − ζi)2 + (ξi + 1 − ξi)2 ξi + ζi ⎭
when N ¼3 (Fig. 3) (Blakely, 1996; Zhang and Pan, 2004; Roy,
2007). Therefore, the gravity anomaly of triangle ΔABC (Fig. 3) at ⎧ (ζi + 1 − ζi) 2 ⎫
observation point O is expressed as ⎪ (
⎪ (ζi + 1 − ζi)2 + (ξi + 1 − ξi)2
3
ξ
i
ξ
tan−1 ζi − tan−1 ζi + 1
i +1
)⎪⎪⎬
Q′ = ∑ ⎨ ,
i = 1 ⎪ + 1 (ζi + 1 − ζi)(ξi + 1 − ξi) ⎪
3 3 ξi2+ 1 + ζi2+ 1
ξiζi + 1 − ξi + 1ζi ⎪ ln 2 2 ⎪
Δgj = ∑ δgi = 2GΔσ ∑ ⎩ 2 (ζi + 1 − ζi)2 + (ξi + 1 − ξi)2 ξi + ζi ⎭
i=1 i=1 (ζi + 1 − ζi)2 + (ξi + 1 − ξi)2
⎡ ⎛ ζ ⎞ ⎧ (ζi + 1 − ζi)(ξi + 1 − ξi) ⎫
⎢⎣ ⎝
ζ
⎢(ξi + 1 − ξi)⎜tan−1 i − tan−1 i + 1 ⎟
ξi ξi + 1 ⎠
3 ⎪ (
⎪ (ζi + 1 − ζi)2 + (ξi + 1 − ξi)2
ξ
i
ξ
tan−1 ζi − tan−1 ζi + 1
i +1
)⎪⎪
P′ = ∑ ⎨ ⎬,
i = 1 ⎪+ 1 ⎪
2 ξ 2 + ζ2
ξ 2 + ζi2+ 1 ⎤
(ξi +1 − ξi)
1 ⎪ ln i +21 i2+ 1 ⎪
+ (ζi + 1 − ζi)ln i +21 ⎥, ⎩ 2 (ζi + 1 − ζi)2 + (ξi + 1 − ξi)2 ξi + ζi ⎭
2 ξi + ζi2 ⎥⎦ (3) where (ξi, ζi) is the coordinate of the ith triangle corner.
where Δgj is the gravity anomaly of the jth triangle cell, δgi is the Adding the magnetic anomalies caused by all triangle cells, the
 S. Liu et al. / Computers & Geosciences 76 (2015) 18–30
Fig. 4. Constrained Delaunay triangulation for rectangular model on rugged surface (a) and its gravity and magnetic anomalies (Δs ¼ 1g/cm3, MS ¼ 100A/m, Is ¼ 45°) (b).
magnetic anomalies of the 2D arbitrary shape model at point O are
expressed as
NT
ΔT = ∑ ΔTj.
j=1
Fig. 4a is a CDT result for a rectangular prism model on the
rugged surface. The cross-section is divided into 2192 triangula-
tion cells and the rectangular area is cut into 100 triangles. The
CDT realizes the discretization of irregular terrain and complicated
objects. The areas near the surface are cut smaller than in deep
region. If the residual density of the rectangular prism is 1 g/cm3;
the effective magnetization intensity is 100 A/m and the effective
magnetization inclination is 45°, the computed gravity (i.e., Δg)
and magnetic (i.e., ΔT) anomalies on the south-northern profile
using Eqs. (3)–(6) are shown in Fig. 4b.
2.3. Inverse modeling for gravity and magnetic field data
We perform the same algorithm as earlier publication (i.e., Liu
et al., 2013) to invert for the gravity and magnetic data. Eqs. (3)–(6)
reveal that the physical properties of density and susceptibility are
linearly relative to the gravity and magnetic anomalies if the self-
demagnetization effect is neglected, written the matrix equation
as
Gm = d,
where d is the observed data vector, m is the model parameter
vector, G is the m  n dimensional sensitivity matrix of which the
elements are the potential anomalies caused by cells with unit
susceptibility (or density) and m and n are the numbers of
21
observed data and divided mesh cells, respectively. The objective
function of potential data inversion is given by
ϕ = (d − Gm)T W(d − Gm), (8)
(6)
{ }
where W = diag 1/σ12, 1/σ22, … , 1/σm2 and σi is the standard de-
viation of the ith datum (Li and Oldenburg, 1996, 1998). Minimiz-
ing the objective function ϕ , let (∂ϕ/∂m) = 0 and then obtain
GT WGm = GT Wd. (9)
The coefficient matrix in Eq. (9) has a large condition number
and it impairs the computational efficiency. To improve the rate of
convergence, Pilkington (1997) used a preconditioner to reduce
the condition number by premultiplying a matrix P at both sides
of Eq. (9). Hence, Eq. (9) is written as
PGT WGm = PGT Wd, (10)
where P is the preconditioner.
Pilkington (1997) inverted for the surface magnetic data using a
preconditioner with simple form P¼z3I (I is the unit matrix). In
our study, the preconditioner is given by
P = z βI, (11)
(7) where z is the average buried-depth from the observation surface
to the magnetic cell, β is a constant related to the attenuation
rapid of the magnetic anomaly with the distance between the
observation points and the field sources. Generally, for example,
the 2D and 3D ground magnetic anomaly formulations are ex-
pressed as (Blakely, 1996)
22 S. Liu et al. / Computers & Geosciences 76 (2015) 18–30
∫S Mr(2Q ) ⎡⎣⎢2(M^ ⋅^r)^r − M^ ⎤⎦⎥ds,
B(P) = 2Cm
(12)
and
B(P) = Cm ∫V Mr(3Q ) ⎡⎢⎣3(M^ ⋅^r)^r − M^ ⎤⎥⎦dv, (13)
where B(P) is the magnetic anomalous vector at observation point
P; Cm is a constant; M(Q) is the magnetization intensity and Q is
the position of volume or surface element (i.e., ds or dv); r is the
^ and ^ are the unit vectors in the directions
distance from Q to P; M r 0–500 m depths is divided into 2192 triangle cells (Fig. 4a). The
of the magnetization vector and unperturbed magnetic field, re-
spectively. Eqs. (12) and (13) show that the magnetic anomalies of
2D and 3D magnetic bodies decay by the 2nd and 3rd powers of
the distances between the field sources and the observation
points, respectively. Thus, in theory, for 2D inversion of magnetic
data β r4.0 and for 3D inversion β r6.0 (Liu et al., 2013). Whereas
for gravity data, β r 2.0 (2D) and β r4.0 (3D) since the magnetic
anomalies are decayed faster than gravity data for one order.
Eqs. (9) and (10) are the fundamental equations of inversion for
gravity and magnetic data. We solve Eqs. (9) and (10) to obtain the
physical properties distributions within the subsurface. Compared
with general regularization inversion of Tikhonov form (e.g., Li and
Oldenburg, 1996, 2000; Cella and Fedi, 2012), the objective func-
tion in our approach does not include the depth-weighting and
roughness constraints in the regularization term. We add the
depth-weighting in form of a preconditioner. The flows of inverse
modeling for potential field data are as following. To begin with,
we divide the subsurface using constrained Delaunay triangulation
method. Then an initial model (i.e., m0) is given and the gravity or
magnetic anomalies are computed by Eqs. (3)–(6) (i.e., dpre).
Subsequently, we calculate the corrections of the model parameter
(i.e., Δm) by solving Eq. (10) using the conjugate gradient algo-
rithm before updating the model (i.e., m ¼m þ Δm) (Pilkington,
1997; Liu et al., 2013). Then we set the absolute constraints to the
inverted model parameters expressed as mmin < m < mmax where
mmin and mmax are the minimum and maximal values of the model
parameter. The algorithm flowchart is shown in Fig. 5.
3. Synthetic examples
We give four 2D magnetic tabular models, with cross-sections
that are rectangular, vertically parallel, inclined parallel, synclinal
Fig. 5. Flowchart of the preconditioned conjugate gradient method inversion using
constrained Delaunay triangulation.
to test the method (Fig. 6). These models have a constant sus-
ceptibility k ¼2.5 SI. The intensity, inclination and declination of
Earth's magnetic field are B0 ¼50,000 nT, I ¼45° and D¼ 0°. The
observation surface is rugged with maximal elevation difference
nearly 100 m (Fig. 6). The spacing of the observation points is 20 m
and there are 51 points in total. The observed magnetic anomalies
are added Gaussian random noise with standard deviation 600 nT
(about 10%) in the forward modeling data (Fig. 7).
We invert for the susceptibility distributions using the surface
ΔT anomalies. The subsurface region of 0–1000 m distances and
conjugate gradient iterations are converged after 200 iterations
taking about 180 s by using a PC with Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-2450
CPU@2.50 GHz and 8.00 GB RAM. The predicted ΔT anomalies
accurately fit the observed data (Fig. 7). The conjugate gradient
shows better computational efficiency. Moreover, the method re-
turns favorable inversion results and the recovered susceptibility
distributions are good in consistency with the true models (Fig. 6).
For instance, the recovered magnetic sources' depths, shapes and
dipping directions of the rectangular prism, vertical and inclined
parallel prism, and the synclinal model coincide with the synthetic
models.
4. Real example: magnetite prospecting of the Mengku iron-
ore deposit, Xinjiang, northwest China
4.1. Geology and geophysics
The Mengku iron-ore deposit is one of the largest iron-ore
deposits in Xinjiang Province, northwest China (Fig. 8a). It lies in
the middle of the north-eastern margin of the late Palaeozoic
Maizi inland rift basin of the Aletia active margin of the Siberia
plate. The ore-bearing strata is the lower subformation of the
Lower Devonian Kangbutiebao Formation. Iron-ore bodies are
strictly confined by the NW–SE closed Tiemuxiaerguen sub-syn-
cline and are located in the core of the sub-syncline. The ore-
controlling faults may be secondary faults arising from the closed
Tiemuxiaerguen sub-syncline and the regional Bazhai fault. The
host rock of the Mengku iron deposit is mainly amphibole–oligo-
clase–gneiss formed by progressive regional metamorphism, and
locally consists of fractured migmatite. The wall rock near the ore
body is skarnized, and contains garnet, epidote, hedenbergite,
tremolite and other minerals. The Mengku deposit is a polygenetic
and compound iron deposit formed by the sedimentary exhalative,
metamorphic reconstruction and enrichment by magmatic hy-
drothermal processes (Li et al., 2003; Guo et al., 2006; Xu et al.,
2007; Dang et al., 2010).
In the mining area, the magnetite ores are strongly magnetic
(i.e., 0.79–1.81 SI), and the surrounding rocks such as leptynites
and gneisses have weak magnetism (Table 1). The iron ores cause
high magnetic anomalies, and magnetic prospecting is one of the
most effective methods of exploring the magnetite orebodies. The
statistics of the magnetic properties also show that the magnetite
ores and the surrounding rocks have weak remanent magnetism
because the ratios of induced magnetization to remanent mag-
netization of the magnetite ores and the surrounding rocks are
2.3 and 2.8, respectively. Therefore, the total magnetization di-
rection lies in the direction of the Earth's magnetic field. In the
Mengku iron-ore deposit, the geomagnetic inclination I¼ 67°, the
geomagnetic declination D¼ 3° (north by west), and the geomag-
netic intensity T0 ¼58,110 nT. The magnetite ores cause high
magnetic anomalies. As shown in Fig. 8b, the total field anomalies
(ΔT) on the ground are distributed in NW–SE bands and are
mainly concentrated in the west of the mineral deposit. The
maximum magnetic anomaly is 16,000 nT.
 S. Liu et al. / Computers & Geosciences 76 (2015) 18–30 23

Fig. 6. Recovered susceptibility distributions for the four synthetic models: (a) single rectangular prism; (b) parallel vertical dike prism; (c) parallel inclined dike prism and
(d) synclinal prism.

Fig. 7. The observed and predicted total field anomalies for the four synthetic models: (a) single rectangular prism; (b) parallel vertical dike prism; (c) parallel inclined dike
prism and (d) synclinal prism.

4.2. Inversion for Lines 135 and 143 with the self-demagnetization effect of high susceptibility bodies
that distorts the internal magnetization intensity and direction
We select the magnetic anomalies (no-smoothed) of Lines 135 and we neglect its influence in the real examples. There are several
and 143 to test the method. Our method currently cannot deal drillholes to infer the depths and shapes of the magnetite
24 S. Liu et al. / Computers & Geosciences 76 (2015) 18–30

Fig. 8. Geological map (a) (adapted from Xu et al. (2007)) and total field anomaly contour map (b) of the Mengku iron-deposit, Xinjiang, northwest China (1 – Lower
Devonian upper Kangbutiebao formation (tuffaceous sandstone, leucogranulitite), 2 – Lower Devonian lower Kangbutiebao formation (hornblende eptynites, gneiss), 3 –
Upper Silurian Songkemu formation (schist, gneiss), 4 – late hercynian granites, 5 – early hercynian granites, 6 – faults, 7 – ore bodies, 8 – Quaternary, 9 – iron-ore areas.

Table 1
Statistics (geometric means) of the magnetic properties of rock and ore samples of the Mengku iron-ore deposit in Xinjiang, northwest China. The magnetite ores have a
stronger magnetism than the surrounding rocks; the surrounding rocks show weak remanent magnetization.

Rocks and ores Samples number Susceptibility κ (4π  10  6 SI) Induced magnetization Mi ¼κT0 Remanent magnetization Mr (10  3 A/
(10  3 A/m) m)

Magnetite (rich) 37 144,000 83,700 37,100

Magnetite (poor) 30 62,800 36,500 15,100
Biotite amphiboles 25 4500 2600 820
Banded amphibolite leptynites 44 4450 2590 1240
Leptynites 44 3100 1800 720
Amphibolite leptynites 24 6600 3800 2000
Biotite amphibolite plagioclase 21 7600 4400 930
gneisses
Amphibolite leptynites 40 1855 1078 418
 S. Liu et al. / Computers & Geosciences 76 (2015) 18–30 25

Fig. 9. Constrained Delaunay triangulations for cross-sections 135 (a) and 143 (b) of the Mengku iron-deposit, Xinjiang, northwest China.

Fig. 10. Recovered susceptibility distributions of the Lines 135 (a) and 143 (b) of the Mengku iron-deposit, Xinjiang, northwest China.

orebodies. The terrains of Lines 135 and 143 are sharply undulated
with maximal elevation differences exceeding 100 m. For accu-
rately representing the fluctuations of the observation surfaces
and because the resolution of the gravity and magnetic anomalies
are declined with the increase of the depths of field sources, the
shallow areas are divided smaller than the deep ranges. As shown
in Fig. 9, the areas from 0 to 600 m distance and from surface to
600 m elevation of Lines 135 and 143 are divided into 1579 and
1598 triangle cells composed of 888 and 898 nodes using CDT,
respectively. There are 120 magnetic observation points in Lines
26 S. Liu et al. / Computers & Geosciences 76 (2015) 18–30

135 and 143, with a point spacing of 5 m (Fig. 10). Table 2

Subsequently, we invert the susceptibility distributions using Density measurements of the rock samples of the Poshi deposit, Xinjiang, north-
west China.
preconditioned conjugate gradient method and Fig. 10 shows the
inversion results. Firstly, the inversions converge after an average Rocks Samples Range s (g/cm3) Mean s (g/cm3)
of 100 iterations, and the predicted ground magnetic anomalies fit number
the observed anomalies rather well. The method shows good
Peridotite 70 2.59–3.14 2.87
calculation efficiency and algorithm stability. Moreover, the re-
Olivine pyoxeneite 3 3.05 3.05
covered susceptibility distributions are in good agreement with Plagioclase websterite 2 2.94–3.0 2.97
the magnetite orebodies inferred from the drillholes. For example, Ore-bearing olivine gabbro 5 2.91–3.19 3.09
the susceptibility distributions reveal that the thick magnetite norite
Gabbro 46 2.72–3.03 2.89
orebodies occur at elevations of 800–1100 m and 900–1100 m at
Diorite porphyrite 2 2.7 2.7
Lines 135 and 143, respectively. They dip to northeast about 60– Garnet skarn 22 2.68–3.35 3.07
70° (Fig. 10a and b). And the shapes of magnetic sources also are in Malachited and serpenti- 4 3.22–3.34 3.31
consistent with the real situations. The inverted susceptibility nized peridotite
Biotite quartz schist 49 2.61–2.83 2.70
values vary from 0.5 to 2.0 SI which yields a good approximation
Marble 31 2.69–2.92 2.85
with the magnetic properties statistics in Table 1 (i.e., 0.79–1.81 SI Biotite potash feldspar 9 2.6–2.62 2.61
from poor to rich magnetite orebodies). In summary, in the case granite
study of the Mengku iron-ore deposit, the constrained Delaunay
triangulation and preconditioned conjugate gradient methods re-
turn good application results. Constrained Delaunay triangulation spatial distributions of ultrabasic rocks becomes vital of im-
is an useful approach to deal with the sharply irregular terrain. The portance to prospect Cu–Ni deposits in Pobei region (Yang et al.,
preconditioned conjugate gradient method also provides an effect 2002; Sun et al., 2009; Xie et al., 2011).
way to recover the field sources' distributions including their The Poshi basic–ultrabasic rocks, as one of the Pobei rocks, are
depths, shapes and occurrences. the products of the first intrusion at middle Variscian stage. The
rocks have 2 km-length and 1.6 km-width and outcrop about
2.3 km2. The ultrabasic rocks mostly are distributed at the negative
5. Real example: ultrabasic rocks prospecting of the Poshi Cu– topography areas at the center of the basic–ultrabasic rocks and
Ni deposits, Xinjiang, northwest China covered by the Quaternary sediments. The ultrabasic rocks appear
irregular elliptic shapes striking northeast-southwest direction.
5.1. Geology and geophysics Their length and width reach to 1.5 km and 0.8 km, respectively
(Fig. 11). The preliminary geological and geophysical surveys reveal
Pobei rocks are one of the most important copper–nickel me- that the occurrences of ultrabasic rocks like a pot and dip to inside
tallogenic prospecting areas in Xinjiang province, located at the with inclinations larger than 60°.
Beishan rift belt in the northeast of the Tarim platform (Fig. 11). The different lithofacies of basic–ultrabasic rocks have clear
The regional and deep Baidiwa faults offer the channels for the physical properties contracts and the geophysical prospecting is an
intrusion of basic–ultrabasic rocks and control the distributions, effective approach to explore the ultrabasic rocks. The density
shapes and occurrences of Pobei rocks, thereby creating favorable measurements for rock samples in Table 2 show that the ma-
petrogenesis and mineralization conditions. Simultaneously, the lachited and serpentinized peridotite (i.e., 3.09 g/cm3), garnet
basic–ultrabasic rocks formed at middle Variscian stage exist suf- skarn (i.e., 3.07 g/cm3) and olivine gabbro (i.e., 3.07 g/cm3) own
ficient circle-shaped cracks, which provide some favorable ore- the highest density (i.e., 43.0 g/cm3) and the plagioclase web-
hosting spaces for the emplacement of ultrabasic rocks. So the sterite (i.e., 2.97 g/cm3) and gabbro (i.e., 2.89 g/cm3) are followed.
basic–ultrabasic rocks are the geological premise of looking for The density of peridotite (i.e., 2.87 g/cm3) resembles the marble
magmatic Cu–Ni deposits in Pobei region and also are the primary (i.e., 2.85 g/cm3). The acid dioritic porphyrite (i.e., 2.70 g/cm3),
geologic factors controlling the deposits. Therefore, studying the biotite quartz schist (i.e., 2.70 g/cm3) and biotite potash feldspar

Fig. 11. Geological map of the Poshi deposits, Xinjiang, northwest China. Adapted from Sun et al. (2009) and Yang et al. (2002).
 S. Liu et al. / Computers & Geosciences 76 (2015) 18–30 27

granite (i.e., 2.61 g/cm3) have the lowest density (i.e., o2.7 g/cm3). Table 4
In the processes of density measurements, in addition, we found Statistics of the magnetic property of the rock samples of the Poshi deposit, Xin-
jiang, northwest China.
that the density of gabbro samples concentrates about 2.9 g/cm3
and there are only 3 pieces of samples of which the density is less Rocks Range of sus- Mean of sus- Range of re- Mean of re-
than 2.8 g/cm3. Whereas, the number of peridotite samples' ceptibility κ ceptibility κ manence Mr manence Mr
density o 2.8 g/cm3 reaches to 16, occupying 23%. The density (4π  10  6 SI) (4π  10  6 SI) (10  3 A/m) (10  3 A/m)
measurements for drilling core samples indicate that the density
Granite 139–750 399 190–2000 650
of peridotite at 10–243 m depth is lower than 2.8 g/cm3 and the Diorite 40–5902 1180 70–1250 370
norite, pyroxenite, gabbro under 350 m is 42.9 g/cm3 in ZK0-1 Gabbro – 1429 – 830
(Table 3). As for ZK0-2, the peridotite's density varies 2.59–2.8 g/ Diabase 1730–2220 1923 290–620 410
Gneiss 950–2230 1460 3400–7058 5590
cm3 from 121 to 283 m depth; ore-bearing hornblende pyroxenite,
Marble 49–1910 259 70–6000 470
norite, gabbro below 385 m have lager density (about 3.0 g/cm3). Schist 29–430 250 40–9660 1000
Overall, the density measurements indicate that the density of Sandstone 64–3301 883 780–4160 1890
ultrabasic rocks (i.e., 2.6–2.8 g/cm3) is lower 0.1–0.5 g/cm3 than Ultrabasic 20–40,200 3505 20–54,600 1892
the gabbro, ore-bearing basic–ultrabasic rocks, garnet skarn and Dacite 10–10,000 347 10–10,000 189
Tuff 60–1520 1628 40–920 795
serpentine (i.e., 2.9–3.1 g/cm3). Therefore, on the background of Skarn – 17,000 – 3800
intermediate-basic rocks, certain scale peridotite rocks will pro-
duce lower amplitude of residual gravity anomalies and the con-
tact zones between the bottom of ultrabasic rocks and surround- and higher magnetic anomalies in the areas where there are ul-
ing rocks are the favorable positions for ore formation. trabasic rocks outcropped. The TEM sounding profile has 1200 m
Besides, the statistics for magnetic properties demonstrate that length and the contour map of the changing rate of electro-
the ultrabasic rocks have strong and variable magnetism with magnetic induction (i.e., DBz/Dt) shows lower resistivity in ultra-
mean susceptibility larger than 3000 (4π  10  6 SI) and remanent basic-hosting areas (Fig. 12c). Before we invert the gravity and
magnetization about 2000 (10  3 A/m). While the intermediate magnetic anomalies, the cross-section is divided into 2756 triangle
and basic rocks (e.g., gabbro, dacite, diorite) are moderately cells using constrained Delaunay triangulation and the prospect-
magnetic (i.e., 2000  4π  10  6 SI) (Table 4). The acid granite, ing depth is around 1000 m (Fig. 12a).
diorite and metamorphic marble are weakly magnetized and We use the preconditioned conjugate gradient method to re-
compose the background fields of the Poshi deposits. In addition, cover the density and susceptibility distributions. The inversion is
the gabbro samples show higher polarizability (i.e., 0.04–1.49%) converged after 10 times of iterations. The predicted gravity and
and higher resistivity (i.e., 4 2000 Ω m), while the polarizability magnetic anomalies accurately fit the observation anomalies ac-
of ultrabasic is lower than 1% and its resistivity varies 323– curately (Fig. 12f) and the density and susceptibility distribution
978 Ω m (Table 5). Therefore, the ultrabasic has apparent contract inversion results are shown in Fig. 12b and d, respectively.
of magnetic and electrical properties. The gravity, magnetic and electrical inversion results yield good
In summary, compared with the intermediate-basic rocks (i.e., approximations with the geological and drilling information. The
gabbro), the ultrabasic rocks have the physical properties factures cross-sections are divided into six lithologic zones (i.e., marked A–
of lower density, higher susceptibility, lower resistivity and po- F zones) comprehensively based on the inversion results and
larizability. Geophysical prospecting including the gravity, mag- geological information (Fig. 12b–e). The most northwest area (i.e.,
netic and electrical methods play important roles in investigating A zone) with the lowest density (residual density reaches to
the spatial distributions of ultrabasic rocks and looking for favor-  0.4 g/cm3) and weak susceptibility is inferred to be the acid
able positions of ore formation. In Poshi deposit, the surface granite. The geological maps of Figs. 11 and 12e confirm that there
gravity, magnetic and transient electromagnetic method (TEM) remains large scale granite rocks in the northwest of the Poshi
were carried out. We investigate the 2D distributions of ultrabasic deposits and the physical properties measurements for granite
rocks at Line 0. samples show low density and weak magnetics. Besides, we de-
duce that the both B and D zones are the basic rocks of gabbro and
5.2. Inversion for Line 0 C zone hosts the ultrabasic peridotite. The C zone has the features
of lower density, higher susceptibility and lower resistivity, so they
Line 0 locates at the center of the Poshi deposits and crosses the are the responses of ultrabasic peridotite. The residual density
ultrabasic rocks (Fig. 11). In this profile, the gravity, magnetic and varies  0.1 to  0.2 g/cm3 and companies with 0.02–0.06 SI sus-
TEM methods are implemented. The point spacing of gravity and ceptibility contract, which coincide with the physical properties
magnetic surveys is 40 m and there are 60 observation points in statistics in Tables 2–4. The B and C zones are deduced to be the
total. The residual gravity anomaly and magnetic anomaly (no- gabbro basic rocks due to their higher density, lower susceptibility
smoothed) are shown in Fig. 12f. It is appeared that lower gravity and high resistivity. However, it is noticeable that the B and D

Table 3
Density measurements of the rock samples collected in boreholes of the Poshi deposit, Xinjiang, northwest China.

Boreholes Rocks Samples number Range s (g/cm3) Mean s (g/cm3) Depth (m)

ZK0-1 Altered lherzolite 5 2.63–2.98 2.82 10–70

Mineralized lherzolite 5 2.63–2.66 2.64 135–243
Ore-bearing olivine gabbro norite 4 2.91–3.1 2.99 351–382
Gabbro 3 2.95–2.96 2.95 455–548

ZK0-2 Plagioclase hornblende peridotite 4 2.59–2.8 2.71 121–283

Ore-bearing plagioclase hornblende peridotite 3 2.98–3.05 3.0 385–413
Olivine gabbro norite 3 3.07–3.19 3.14 529–666
Gabbro 3 2.72–2.87 2.82 690–698
28 S. Liu et al. / Computers & Geosciences 76 (2015) 18–30

Table 5
Statistics of the electrical property of the rock samples of the Poshi deposit, Xinjiang, northwest China.

Rocks Samples number Range of resistivity ρs (Ω m) Mean of resistivity ρs (Ω m) Range of polarizability ηs (%) Mean of polarizability ηs (%)

Dunite 6 302–1240 486 0.01–0.32 0.09

Pyroxene peridotite 3 122–4637 1602 – 0.66
Olivine pyoxeneite 2 253–837 – 0.04–0.71 0.38
Gabbro 10 192–1948 2796 0.04–1.49 0.37

zones rocks show lower density, but the B zone's density is larger
0.2 g/cm3 than that of D zone. It is derived that the B and D zones
are the earlier and latter basic instruction, respectively. Moreover,
the D zone is covered by the metamorphic rocks labeled as E zone.
The metamorphic rocks main include the marble and schist of
ChB1 and ChB2 showing weak residual density and susceptibility.
Finally, the geological surveys reveal that there are diorite intru-
sions distributed at the southeast of the profile (i.e., F zone).
However, they do not have apparent density and magnetic dif-
ferences compared with the metamorphic rocks, and so the E and
F do not have clear physical properties boundary to distinguish
them. In conclusion, the gravity and magnetic inversion results
indicates that there are six lithologies in Line 0: A – granite (low
density and moderate magnetism), B – earlier gabbro (high den-
sity, weak magnetism, high resistivity), C – peridotite (ultrabasic
rocks, low density, strong magnetism, low resistivity), D – latter
gabbro (high density, weak magnetism, high resistivity), E – me-
tamorphic rocks (i.e., ChB1 and ChB2, schist and marble, moderate
density and magnetism), F – diorite (moderate density and mag-
netism) (Table 6). This results are verified by the results of physical
properties measurements and geological surveys.

Fig. 12. The gravity, magnetic and electrical inversion results for Line 0 of the Poshi deposits, Xinjiang, northwest China: (a) triangular discretization; (b) residual density
distributions for gravity data inversion; (c) DBz/Dt contour map for TEM; (d) relative susceptibility distributions for magnetic data inversion; (e) geological profile;
(f) observed and predicted gravity and magnetic anomalies. The gravity, magnetic and electrical inversion results divide the cross-section into six lithologies: A – granite, B –
earlier gabbro, C – peridotite, D – latter gabbro, E – schist and marble, F – diorite.
 S. Liu et al. / Computers & Geosciences 76 (2015) 18–30
Table 6
The inferred lithologies for Line 0 and their corresponding physical properties in
Fig. 12 (L – Low, M – Moderate, H – High).
Lithologic A B C D E F
zones
Density L H L H M M
Susceptibility M L H L M M
Resistivity – H L H – –
Inferred Granite Earlier Peridotite Latter Schist Diorite
lithologies gabbro (ultrabasic) gabbro and
marble
6. Conclusions
The structured discretization such as the rectangular and cu-
boid division is widely performed in the inverse modeling of po-
tential field data. But this regular mesh has large errors when
representing the complicated geological model or the rugged ter-
rain. In our research, we implement the 2D constrained Delaunay
triangulation (CDT) method to cut the cross-section. And it is as-
sumed that each triangle has the uniform physical property dis-
tributions. So the forward modeling expressions for gravity and
magnetic anomalies are derived from the N-sided polygon when
N ¼3. And then we use the preconditioned conjugate gradient al-
gorithm to invert the gravity and magnetic data under the con-
ditions of rugged observation surface. Compared with the general
regularization inversion of Tikhonov form, the objective function
in our approach does not include the depth-weighting and
roughness constraints in the regularization term. We add the
depth-weighting in form of a preconditioner, where the pre-
conditioner is determined by the distances between triangular
cells and surface observers. In the synthetic example, the re-
covered physical property distributions yield good approximations
with the theoretical models. And the inverted magnetite orebodies
and ultrabasic rocks are verified by the additional drilling and
geological information in the real examples of the Mengku and
Pobei deposits in Xinjiang, northwest China. The constrained De-
launay triangulation accurately deals with the undulate terrain
problem and avoids the error using traditional regular discretiza-
tion, which provides an useful approach to invert the potential
field data on the sharp rugged observation surface and compli-
cated geological conditions. The method also can be extended to
the 3D inversion of potential fields if dividing the subsurface into
numbers of tetrahedron cells.
Acknowledgments
This work was supported by grants from the National Natural
Science Foundation of China (No. 41274077, 41474055), the Geo-
logical Survey Project of China (No. 12120113101800) and the
Fundamental Research Funds for the Institute of Geophysical and
Geochemical Exploration, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences
(No. WHS201304). The authors would like to thank two anon-
ymous reviewers for their constructive comments and sugges-
tions, which helped to improve the manuscript significantly.
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