Refraction Tomography by blocky parameterization

Abstract

Refraction tomography can be used to interpret the velocity and geometry of the shallow subsurface for engineering surveys as well as for calculating static corrections in reflection data using refraction data. Our algorithm calculates head waves and partial derivatives by means of a wavefront method calculated on a triangular finite element mesh. We parameterize the subsurface model in blocky layers, such that we invert for the velocities and interface coordinates of the geologic model. We calibrate our technique by inverting synthetic data computed by the wavefront method, and then apply thos method to the real seismic data we obtained. The velocity and depths are consistent with those obtained by the more commonly used Coherency Inversion Method.