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Interval velocity and thickness estimate from wide‐angle reflection data
Author(s) -
De Franco Roberto
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
geophysical prospecting
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.735
H-Index - 79
eISSN - 1365-2478
pISSN - 0016-8025
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-2478.2001.00265.x
Subject(s) - offset (computer science) , geology , reflection (computer programming) , geometry , isotropy , optics , geodesy , mean squared error , ray tracing (physics) , interval (graph theory) , mathematics , statistics , physics , combinatorics , computer science , programming language
A method to estimate interval velocities and thickness in a horizontal isotropic layered medium from wide‐angle reflection traveltime curves is presented. The method is based on a relationship between the squared reflection traveltime differences and the squared offset differences relative to two adjacent reflectors. The envelope of the squared‐time versus offset‐difference curves, for rays with the same ray parameter, is a straight line, whose slope is the inverse of the square of the interval velocity and whose intercept is the square of the interval time. The method yields velocity and thickness estimates without any knowledge of the overlying stratification. It can be applied to wide‐angle reflection data when either information on the upper crust and/or refraction control on the velocity is not available. Application to synthetic and real data shows that the method, used together with other methods, allows us to define a reliable 1D starting model for estimating a depth profile using either ray tracing or another technique.