A case study: travel time inversion for P-wave velocity using OBS data of South China Sea

Wang, Xiangchun, Minshull, Timothy A., Xia, Changliang and Liu, Xuewei (2012) A case study: travel time inversion for P-wave velocity using OBS data of South China Sea. Marine Geophysical Researches, 33 (4), 389-396. (doi:10.1007/s11001-013-9167-7).

Abstract

It is very important for converting the seismic data from the time domain to the depth domain. Here we discuss the approaches of inverse modeling of travel times for determination of the P-wave velocity (Vp). The migration section of the single channel seismic data is used to define the model horizons and help to control their geometry. Wide angle hydrophone data of OBS are used to determine P-wave travel times. The picked travel times from various shots are inverted for P-wave interval velocities using RayInvr, which calculated theoretical travel times via ray tracing. Damped least squares optimization is performed to fine tune the fits between observed and calculated travel times. In the end, the Vp curve is achieved and the results are compared with that derived from the conventional hyperbolic curve velocity analysis method, the shape of the two curves are similar, and the velocity increases in the layer where gas hydrates are present.

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Contributors

Author: Timothy A. Minshull

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