Electrical anisotropy is increasingly recognized as an important aspect of the resistivity models required to explain magnetotelluric (MT) observations. However, a limited number of practical MT inversion algorithms that can consider anisotropy have been published to date. To address this problem, we have developed a three‐dimensional (3‐D) MT inversion algorithm that recovers a 3‐D resistivity model that considers arbitrary electrical anisotropy. The inversion uses the same inversion algorithm as the widely used ModEM inversion algorithm, and a novel forward modeling algorithm to consider the anisotropic Earth. The algorithm was tested on both synthetic and field MT data. Inversions considered both a completely general anisotropy tensor with six components and approximations with less parameters. Synthetic inversions show that the two horizontal components of resistivity and the anisotropy strike can be well recovered, while the vertical component of resistivity is poorly resolved, primarily because current flow in MTs is dominantly horizontal. The synthetic examples confirm the limitation of the axial anisotropic inversion technique when applied to MT data produced by a resistivity model with arbitrary anisotropy. The synthetic inversions also showed that inversion of data from an isotropic model will not result in an artificially anisotropic model. Compared to the isotropic inversion model of the real MT data, the anisotropic model clearly shows some features that are consistent with the mapped geology. As expected, the results showed that a given data set can be fit by a range of models, with an inherent trade‐off from 3‐D heterogeneity to 3‐D anisotropy. This uncertainty can be reduced with the use of prior information in the inversion.

The eastern terminations of the Himalayan orogeny, named Namche Barwa, are considered a vital natural laboratory in the Tibetan plateau for geodynamics due to its distinctive geological and geomorphological characteristics. Magnetotelluric (MT) data measured at 83 sites around the Namche Barwa are imaged by three‐dimensional (3‐D) inversion to better reveal the crustal structure of the eastern Himalaya. The results show a complex and heterogeneous electrical structure beneath the Namche Barwa. The electrical conductors distributed in the middle and lower crust around the Namche Barwa provide additional evidence for the “crustal flow” model if they are considered as some parts of the flow in a relatively large‐scale region. The near‐surface resistivity model beneath the inner part of Namche Barwa conforms with the locations of hot spring and fluid inclusions, the brittle‐ductile transition, and the 300°C–400°C isotherm from previous hydrothermal studies. Relatively resistive upper crust (>800 Ωm) is underlain by a more conductive middle to lower crust (<80 Ωm). The electrical characteristics of the thermal structure at shallow depth indicate an accumulation of hydrous melting, a localized conductive steep dipping zone for decompression melting consistent with the “tectonic aneurysm” model for explaining the exhumation mechanism of metamorphic rocks at Namche Barwa. The results also imply that both surface processes and local tectonic responses play a vital role in the evolution of Namche Barwa. An alternative hypothesis that the primary sustained heat source accounts for the local thermal‐rheological structure beneath Namche Barwa is also discussed.

The crucial problems of 3‐D forward modeling using the staggered‐grid finite difference method are described in detail in this paper. They include staggered‐grid, discretization of integral form of Maxwell equation, boundary condition, solving linear algebra equations and calculating 3‐D tensor impedance. Because of giving the more explicit boundary conditions and using Bi‐conjugate gradients stabilized method to solve the linear algebra equation with large coefficient matrix, we get the fast algorithm to calculate effectively the high‐precision electrical and magnetic fields in the whole space. This has been proved by comparing the 3‐D forward modeling solutions with analytic solution to abutting quarter‐spaces, and 2‐D forward modeling to 2‐D prism using 2‐D finite element method. This efficient algorithm has setup basis for doing research on 3‐D inversion.

SUMMARY: Multiphysics imaging for data inversion is of growing importance in many branches of science and engineering. Cross-gradient constraint has been considered as a feasible way to reduce the non-uniqueness problem inherent in inversion process by finding geometrically consistent images from multigeophysical data. Based on OCCAM inversion algorithm, a direct inversion method of 2-D profile velocity structure with surface wave dispersion data is proposed. Then we jointly invert the profiles of magnetotelluric and surface wave dispersion data with cross-gradient constraints. Three synthetic models, including block homogeneous or heterogeneous models with consistent or inconsistent discontinuities in velocity and resistivity, are presented to gauge the performance of the joint inversion scheme. We find that owning to the complementary advantages of the two geophysical data sets, the models recovered with structure coupling constraints exhibit higher resolution in the classification of complex geologic units and settle some imaging problems caused by the separate inversion methods. Finally, a realistic velocity model from the NE Tibetan Plateau and its corresponding resistivity model calculated by empirical law are used to test the effectiveness of the joint inversion scheme in the real geological environment.

The controlled-source audio-frequency magnetotelluric (CSAMT) method has become an important method in geophysical electromagnetic exploration. However, traditional CSAMT only gathers a single set of orthogonal electric and magnetic data, which cannot describe the whole subsurface geological structure. Due to increasingly complex geological targets, the drawbacks of traditional CSAMT have gradually become more significant, promoting the need for tensor CSAMT. Tensor CSAMT can gather richer information, but the 3D forward and inversion models of this method have developed slowly since it was first proposed. The common method for inverting the data of the tensor CSAMT is still magnetotelluric (MT). This paper adopts a staggered-grid finite difference method to realise the 3D forward modelling of the tensor CSAMT. On this basis, we adopt a limited-memory Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno (LBFGS) method to implement a 3D inversion with full impedance data. Through inverting synthetic and real data, we prove that: (1) directly using an MT method to invert the data of the tensor CSAMT will obtain an incorrect result, (2) the inversion result of tensor CSAMT is more reliable than that of the traditional CSAMT, and (3) LBFGS is more efficient than the nonlinear conjugate gradient (NLCG) for tensor CSAMT. Our research shows that 3D tensor CSAMT inversion with LBFGS is very useful and practical for electromagnetic exploration.