Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Encyclopedia of Petroleum Geoscience pp 1–3Cite as

Seismic Velocity Analysis

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:

  • 653 Accesses

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series ((EESS))

Definition

For multi-offset seismic data, velocity analysis is a set of processes that estimate values of seismic wave speed that produce an optimal stack. Velocity analysis can be performed on unmigrated data or on prestack migrated data.

Introduction

Seismic waves propagate inside the earth with variable wave speed , and we must estimate the wave speed to migrate and stack seismic data. The wave speed is usually called velocity, and the estimation process is called velocity analysis. There are two types of velocity analysis: refraction and reflection. Refraction analysis uses diving waves that are refracted through the near surface to receivers at the earth’s surface, and reflection analysis uses waves that have reflected from deeper reflectors. In velocity analysis for unmigrated data, the two processes are often applied several times alternately in an iterative loop. Both are described in detail by Yilmaz and Doherty (2000).

Refraction

Refraction analysis makes use of picked travel...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

References

  • Bishop TN, Bube KP, Cutler RT, Langan RT, Love PL, Resnick JR, Shuey RT, Spindler DA, Wyld HW (1985) Tomographic determination of velocity and depth in laterally varying media. Geophysics 50:903–923

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gray SH (2011) Seismic, migration. In: Gupta HK (ed) Encyclopedia of solid earth geophysics. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 1236–1244

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Lailly P (1984) Migration methods: partial but efficient solutions to the seismic inverse problem. In: Santosa F, Pao YH, Symes W, Holland C (eds) Inverse problems of acoustic and elastic waves. Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, Philadelphia, pp 1387–1403

    Google Scholar 

  • Tarantola A (1984) Inversion of seismic reflection data in the acoustic approximation. Geophysics 49:1259–1266

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Yilmaz O, Doherty SM (2000) Seismic data analysis, processing, inversion, and interpretation of seismic data, Investigations in geophysics, vol 10, 2nd edn. Society of Exploration Geophysicists, Tulsa. 2027 p

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. CGG, Calgary, AB, Canada

    Samuel H. Gray

Authors
  1. Samuel H. Gray
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Samuel H. Gray .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Energy and Geoscience Institute, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

    Rasoul Sorkhabi

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG

About this entry

Cite this entry

Gray, S.H. (2018). Seismic Velocity Analysis. In: Sorkhabi, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Petroleum Geoscience. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02330-4_252-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02330-4_252-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-02330-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-02330-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Earth and Environm. ScienceReference Module Physical and Materials ScienceReference Module Earth and Environmental Sciences

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation