Inversion of a refraction wavefield by imaging in the p-x and v-z planes

Abstract

Summary. The slowness-distance (p, x) plane is an alternative to the slowness-time intercept (p, T) plane as the intermediate image space in inversion of seismic refraction data. The production of a (p, x) image from travel time-distance (T, x) data has been presented elsewhere so emphasis here is on (p, x) to velocity-depth (u. z) transformation. Iterative downward continuation of a (p. x) image converges to the correct (u, z) image in a manner similar to that in the widely used (p, T) to (u, z) process. Application to a real refraction data set from the Imperial Valley of southern California gives a similar (u, z) solution via both (p, x) and (p, T) images.