A unified method for 2-D and 3-D refraction statics

Abstract

Most of the seismic data processing procedures are divided into 2-D, 2.5-D, crooked lines or 3-D versions dictated by the differences in the shot and receiver configurations. In this paper, we introduce a tomographic approach that overcomes these geometrical difficulties and provides stable statics solutions from picked first‐break times. We also show that the first‐break picks contain both the short and the long wavelength surface statics. The solutions are obtained by solving a set of generalized surface‐consistent delay‐time equations using the method of weighted least squares and conjugate gradient. While iterating, each first‐break pick is evaluated to ensure its consistency with the least‐squares solution. Based on consistency, we weight the traveltime picks and use them in the next iteration. These weights also serve as an indicator of anomalous picks to the user. We show that long wavelength solutions leave large residual errors in the least‐squares solutions. We also use the expected length of the Fresnel zone to differentiate between short and long wavelength static solutions. After removing the influence of long wavelength statics, we apply short wavelength statics to reduce the residual errors further. We demonstrate the validity of our unified method by applying it to actual data examples. The removal of both long and short wavelength statics improves the initial data set that produces a more consistent set of velocities and leaves only the short wavelength residual reflection statics, which are generally less than quarter wavelet period delays. This removes the most probable cause of the leg jump contamination and poor velocity estimates from the residual statics computations, especially from the 3-D data.