AN INVERSE METHOD FOR DETERMINING PARAMETERS FOR FOLDED STRUCTURES

General analytic solutions are presented here to an equation relating two angles describing fault shape, and two angles describing fold shap e. The analytic solutions provide any of the four angles when the othe r three are given. Armed with the general analytic formulae (including generalizations of the original equation to relate present-day sedime ntary bed positions to fault properties which have also been previousl y given), an inverse procedure is then developed which allows paramete r estimates for fault and bed properties to be determined, while honor ing the present day data. The inverse method is guaranteed to keep all parameters within pre-set chosen bounds, and guarantees to find a min imum mismatch between predicted and observed present day bed locations and fault position. In this way an appreciation can be achieved of th e assumptions, parameters, and data quality, quantity and distribution , in relation to resolution, precision, uniqueness, and sensitivity of model outputs and parameters being sought.