Advances in Modelling and Inversion of Seismic Wave Propagation

We report on progress in modelling and inversion of seismic waveforms. This involves in particular the simulation of wave propagation through Earth models with complex geometries (i.e., internal interfaces or topography) using numerical solutions based on tetrahedral meshes. In addition, efficient solvers in 3-D based on a regular-grid spectral element method allow for the simulation of many Earth models and for the inversion (i.e., for the fit) of observed seismograms using adjoint techniques. We present an application of this approach to the Australian continent. Furthermore results are presented on exploiting ideas from reverse acoustics to estimate finite source properties of large earthquakes and to constrain crustal scattering through modeling joint observations of rotational and translational ground motions.