Formulation of the linearized forward problems for multicomponent OBS data in a water/solid configuration using the reciprocity theorem

Summary As is the case with other geophysical data, the interpretation of multicomponent data from the new ocean bottom seismic (OBS) acquisition system requires a solution to the forward problem of predicting seismograms. Born approximation (a single‐scattering approximation) is one of the classical tools used for solving forward problems. The adaptation of this solution to OBS data requires (1) the explicit introduction of the boundary conditions at a water/solid interface, (2) the use of the reciprocity theorem in a fluid/solid configuration and (3) the use of P ‐ and S ‐wave potentials. We present a formulation of the linearized forward problem for predicting multicomponent OBS data using Born approximation and the reciprocity theorem. The results of our formulation are valid for pressure data (hydrophone data) as well as particle velocity data (geophone data). Specific cases where particle velocity data are cast into P ‐ and S ‐wave potentials are also treated. For these scenarios, the background medium and the scatterer are considered arbitrarily anisotropic and heterogeneous.