Seismic Inversion
Abstract
This book describes the theory and practice of inverting
seismic data for the subsurface rock properties of the earth.
The primary application is for inverting reflection and/or
transmission data from engineering or exploration surveys,
but the methods described also can be used for earthquake
studies. I have written this book with the hope that it will be
largely comprehensible to scientists and advanced students
in engineering, earth sciences, and physics. It is desirable
that the reader has some familiarity with certain aspects of
numerical computation, such as finite-difference solutions
to partial differential equations, numerical linear algebra,
and the basic physics of wave propagation (e.g., Snell¡¯s law
andraytracing).Forthosenotfamiliarwiththeterminology
and methods of seismic exploration, a brief introduction is
provided in the Appendix of Chapter 1. Computational labs
are provided for most of the chapters, and some field data
labs are given as well.
MATLAB and Fortran labs at the end of some chapters
are used to deepen the reader¡¯s understanding of the con-
cepts and their implementation. Such exercises are intro-
duced early and geophysical applications are presented in
every chapter. For the non-geophysicist, geophysical con-
cepts are introduced with intuitive arguments, and their
description by rigorous theory is deferred to later chapters.
The lab exercises in the Computational Toolkit can
be found at http://csim.kaust.edu.sa/web/SeismicInversion
and http://utam.gg.utah.edu/SeismicInversion/; the exer-
cises can be accessed using the login Paulina and the
password Brozina.