On shear‐wave triplications in a multilayered transeversely isotropic medium with vertical symmetry axis

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe presence of triplications (caustics) can be a serious problem in seismic data processing and analysis. The traveltime curve becomes multi‐valued and the geometrical spreading correction factor tends to zero due to energy focusing.We analyse the conditions for the qSV‐wave triplications in a homogeneous transversely isotropic medium with vertical symmetry axis. The proposed technique can easily be extended to the case of horizontally layered vertical symmetry axis medium. We show that the triplications of the qSV‐wave in a multilayered medium imply certain algebra. We illustrate this algebra on a two‐layer vertical symmetry axis model.