What does this research mean for the field?

A novel computational framework integrating full-waveform inversion with mineral physics enables the direct inversion of seismic waveforms to determine mantle temperature and chemical composition. Novelty: ClaimNovelty.METHODOLOGICAL. Consensus alignment: ConsensusAlignment.NEUTRAL.

What question did this study set out to answer?

To develop a framework that integrates full-waveform inversion with mineral physics to directly estimate mantle temperature and chemical composition from seismic waveforms.

September 8, 2026Geophysical Journal InternationalOpen Access

A method for thermochemical full-waveform inversion: integrating mineral physics and seismology

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Authors

AZAndrea ZuninoPlanetary Science Institute FMFederico MunchETH Zurich AGAlessandro GhirottoETH Zurich

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Implication

Simulation study demonstrates direct inversion of seismic waveforms for mantle temperature and composition, highlighting a scalable framework to resolve deep Earth structures.

Key Points

To develop a framework that integrates full-waveform inversion with mineral physics to directly estimate mantle temperature and chemical composition from seismic waveforms.
Formulated an optimization problem using the chain rule to split the objective function gradient into independent seismic components (solved via the adjoint method) and thermodynamic components (derived from pre-calculated look-up tables).
Simulated P–SV elastic wave propagation across 2-D synthetic models containing thermal and compositional mantle anomalies, solving the inverse problem via the L-BFGS algorithm.
Applied a linear transformation to model parameters prior to numerical minimization to reduce trade-offs between thermal and compositional effects.
Successfully recovered both thermal and compositional anomalies in 2-D synthetic models as a proof of concept.
Demonstrated that linear parameter transformations effectively mitigate the trade-off between temperature and composition in seismic inversions.
Provided a framework to incorporate petrological constraints that address the non-uniqueness inherent in geophysical inverse problems.

Cite This Study

Zunino et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6a9fd7e758e84d0ff5b46fd5 https://doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggag367

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Implication

Simulation study demonstrates direct inversion of seismic waveforms for mantle temperature and composition, highlighting a scalable framework to resolve deep Earth structures.

A method for thermochemical full-waveform inversion: integrating mineral physics and seismology

Discussion

Member takes

Implication

Key Points

Cite This Study

A method for thermochemical full-waveform inversion: integrating mineral physics and seismology

Discussion

Member takes

Implication

Key Points

Cite This Study

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