The effect of transverse isotropy on isotropic traveltime inversion of vertical seismic profile data—A modeling study

Abstract

Traveltime inversion of multioffset VSP data can be used to determine the depths of the interfaces in layered media. Many inversion schemes, however, assume isotropy and consequently may introduce erroneous structures for anisotropic media. Synthetic traveltime data are computed for layered anisotropic media and inverted assuming isotropic layers. Only the interfaces between these layers are inverted. For a medium consisting of a horizontal isotropic low‐velocity layer on top of a transversely isotropic layer with a horizontal axis of symmetry (e.g., anisotropy due to aligned vertical cracks), 2-D isotropic inversion results in an anticline. For a given axis of symmetry the form of this anticline depends on the azimuth of the source‐borehole direction. The inversion result is a syncline (in 3-D a “bowl” structure), regardless of the azimuth of the source‐borehole direction for a vertical axis of symmetry of the transversely isotropic layer (e.g., anisotropy due to horizontal bedding).