Analytic calculation of phase and group velocities of P-waves in orthorhombic media

Abstract

We have developed an approximate method to calculate the P-wave phase and group velocities for orthorhombic media. Two forms of analytic approximations for P-wave velocities in orthorhombic media were built by analogy with the five-parameter moveout approximation and the four-parameter velocity approximation for transversely isotropic media, respectively. They are called the generalized moveout approximation (GMA)-type approximation and the Fomel approximation, respectively. We have developed approximations for elastic and acoustic orthorhombic media. We have characterized the elastic orthorhombic media in Voigt notation, and we can describe the acoustic orthorhombic media by introducing the modified Alkhalifah’s notation. Our numerical evaluations indicate that the GMA-type and Fomel approximations are accurate for elastic and acoustic orthorhombic media with strong anisotropy, and the GMA-type approximation is comparable with the approximation recently proposed by Sripanich and Fomel. Potential applications of the proposed approximations include forward modeling and migration based on the dispersion relation and the forward traveltime calculation for seismic tomography.