Inversion of reflection seismic data by use of least square method

Abstract

Summary In the present paper, the inversion algorithm to extract the basic wavelet and determine the reflection coefficient in the subsurface only from seismic trace by use of the least square method, is proposed. The inversion procedure are as follows. (1) The initial zero-phase basic wavelet is estimated from seismic trace. (2) The initial reflection coefficient is fixed by the crosscorrelation between the initial basic wavelet and the seismic actual trace. (3) The basic wavelet is modified from the actual seismic trace and the synthetic seismic trace using the initial basic wavelet and the initial reflection coefficient by means of the least square method. This procedure is repeated until the designated count is reached or the error falls off within the designated value. (4) The wavelet processing is performed using the estimated basic wavelet to calculate the reflection coefficient. Judging from the inversion result by use of the actual seismic data, it was clarified that the proposed algorithm could estimate the basic wavelet and the reflection coefficient with high accuracy.