Efficient analysis and representation of geophysical processes using localized spherical basis functions

Frederik J. Simons, Jessica C. Hawthorne, Ciarán D. Beggan

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

28 Scopus citations

Abstract

While many geological and geophysical processes such as the melting of icecaps, the magnetic expression of bodies emplaced in the Earth's crust, or the surface displacement remaining after large earthquakes are spatially localized, many of these naturally admit spectral representations, or they may need to be extracted from data collected globally, e.g. by satellites that circumnavigate the Earth. Wavelets are often used to study such nonstationary processes. On the sphere, however, many of the known constructions are somewhat limited. And in particular, the notion of 'dilation' is hard to reconcile with the concept of a geological region with fixed boundaries being responsible for generating the signals to be analyzed. Here, we build on our previous work on localized spherical analysis using an approach that is firmly rooted in spherical harmonics. We construct, by quadratic optimization, a set of bandlimited functions that have the majority of their energy concentrated in an arbitrary subdomain of the unit sphere. The 'spherical Slepian basis' that results provides a convenient way for the analysis and representation of geophysical signals, as we show by example. We highlight the connections to sparsity by showing that many geophysical processes are sparse in the Slepian basis.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationWavelets XIII
DOIs
StatePublished - 2009
EventWavelets XIII - San Diego, CA, United States
Duration: Aug 2 2009Aug 4 2009

Publication series

NameProceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering
Volume7446
ISSN (Print)0277-786X

Other

OtherWavelets XIII
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CitySan Diego, CA
Period8/2/098/4/09

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Electronic, Optical and Magnetic Materials
  • Condensed Matter Physics
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Applied Mathematics
  • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Keywords

  • Earthquakes
  • Geodesy
  • Geomagnetism
  • Inverse theory
  • Satellite geodesy
  • Sparsity
  • Spectral analysis
  • Spherical harmonics
  • Statistical methods

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