INVERTING THE PARAMETERS OF AN EARTHQUAKE-RUPTURED FAULT WITH A GENETIC ALGORITHM

Natural selection is the spirit of the genetic algorithm (GA): by keep ing the good genes in the current generation, thereby producing better offspring during evolution. The crossover function ensures the herita ge of good genes from parent to offspring. Meanwhile, the process of m utation creates a special gene, the character of which does not exist in the parent generation. A program based on genetic algorithms using C language is constructed to invert the parameters of an earthquake-ru ptured fault. The verification and application of this code is shown t o demonstrate its capabilities. It is determined that this code is abl e to find the global extreme and can be used to solve more practical p roblems with constraints gathered from other sources. It is shown that GA is superior to other inverting schema in many aspects. This easy h andling and yet powerful algorithm should have many suitable applicati ons in the field of geosciences. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All ri ghts reserved.