Reflection and transmission responses of a layered isotropic viscoelastic medium

Abstract

Transmission effects in the overburden are important for amplitude versus offset (AVO) studies and for true‐amplitude imaging of seismic data. Thin layers produce transmission effects which depend on frequency and slowness. We consider an inhomogeneous viscoelastic layered isotropic medium where the parameters depend on depth only. This takes into account both the effects of intrinsic attenuation and the effects of the layering (including changes in attenuation). The seismic wavefield is decomposed into up‐ and downgoing waves scaled with respect to the vertical energy flux. This gives important symmetry relations for the reflection and transmission responses. For a stack of homogeneous layers, the exact reflection response can be computed in a numerically stable way by a simple layer‐recursive algorithm.The reflection and transmission coefficients at a plane interface are functions of the complex medium parameters (depending on frequency) and the real horizontal slowness parameter. Approximations for weak contrast and weak attenuation are derived and compared to the exact values in two numerical examples.We derive first‐order approximations of the PP and SS transmission responses which are direct extensions of the well‐known O'Doherty‐Anstey formula. They consist of a phase shift and attenuation term from direct transmission through the layers and two attenuation terms from backscattered P‐ and S‐waves. The average of these transmission responses may be used for overburden corrections in AVO analysis. The first‐order PP and PS reflection responses have been computed for a stack of very thin layers corresponding to about 2800 m thickness. Because of a lack of data, the intrinsic attenuation was assumed to be constant in the layers. In the seismic frequency band, the intrinsic attenuation dominates the thin‐layer effects. Approximate and exact layer‐recursive modeling of the reflection responses for this layered medium are in good agreement.