A tool for analysing depth resolution in potential-field inversion: application to the Neapolitan Volcanic Area

A careful management of the data errors in potential field inversion is crucial for obtaining reliable information about the source distribution with respect to depth. The Depth Resolution Plot introduced by Fedi, Hansen and Paoletti provides a convenient tool for this analysis: it allows a computational/visual analysis of how much the depth resolution in a potential-field inversion problem is influenced by the way the problem is discretized and regularized. Here we present a variant of the Depth Resolution Plot, called Approx Depth Resolution Plot, which is better suited for large-scale problems, and we employ it to study the retrievable depth resolution in the inversion of the gravity field of the Neapolitan Volcanic Area.