On the construction of an absorptive–dispersive medium model via direct linear inversion of reflected seismic primaries

Abstract

Arbitrary multi-dimensional distributions of two absorptive–dispersive acoustic medium parameters (P-wave velocity and Q) may be determined to first order from reflected seismic primary data with an inverse scattering formulation. The problem can be considered a form of Q-estimation, but one that distinguishes itself by using the dispersive reflection coefficient as its primary source of information. If the overburden above a target to be characterized is known, synthetic Q estimates are successfully derived, albeit using subtle data variations. If the overburden is unknown, the linear estimate is instead best interpreted as the starting point of a nonlinear inverse scattering procedure. Simple analytic and numerical examples may be used to characterize associated issues of conditioning, leakage, detectability and transmission error.