Patent ID: 7808420

Claim:
A method for organizing a plurality of computer processors into a system of parallel processors to invert measured electromagnetic field data from a controlled-source electromagnetic survey of a subsurface region to estimate resistivity structure within the subsurface region, comprising: (a) decomposing the measured data into frequency components, and developing an assumed resistivity model of the subsurface region; (b) arraying computer processors into N banks, where N>1, each bank containing a plurality of processors, including communication between processors and between banks; (c) programming the processors in each bank to solve Maxwell's equations in parallel by an iterative numerical method for solving partial differential equations, each processor solving over a different portion of the volume of the subsurface region; (d) inputting to each bank a different slice of the measured data, a different slice being denoted by a different electromagnetic field component, frequency or electromagnetic source location; (e) partitioning the resistivity model into partial volumes equal in number to the number of processors in a bank and inputting a different partial volume into each processor, and repeating for each bank; (f) solving Maxwell's equations by parallel computation within each bank, thereby simulating theoretical electromagnetic data corresponding to the assumed resistivity model and to the source frequency, location and field component corresponding to the measured data slice associated with the bank, each bank simulating solutions corresponding to different data slices of measured data by parallel computation between banks; and (g) comparing the simulated data to the measured data, and adjusting the model to reduce the difference.