GlobalTomo: A global dataset for physics-ML seismic wavefield modeling and FWI

Abstract: Global seismic tomography, taking advantage of seismic waves from natural earthquakes, provides essential insights into the earth's internal dynamics. Advanced Full-waveform Inversion (FWI) techniques, whose aim is to meticulously interpret every detail in seismograms, confront formidable computational demands in forward modeling and adjoint simulations on a global scale. Recent advancements in Machine Learning (ML) offer a transformative potential for accelerating the computational efficiency of FWI and extending its applicability to larger scales. This work presents the first 3D global synthetic dataset tailored for seismic wavefield modeling and full-waveform tomography, referred to as the GlobalTomo dataset. This dataset is uniquely comprehensive, incorporating explicit wave physics and robust geophysical parameterization at realistic global scales, generated through state-of-the-art forward simulations optimized for 3D global wavefield calculations. Through extensive analysis and the establishment of ML baselines, we illustrate that ML approaches are particularly suitable for global FWI, overcoming its limitations with rapid forward modeling and flexible inversion strategies. This work represents a cross-disciplinary effort to enhance our understanding of the earth's interior through physics-ML modeling.