ON GETTING REFLECTION COEFFICIENTS FROM WAVES *

A horizontally layered non‐absorptive system of homogeneous layers may be specified by giving the reflection coefficients at each interface. Provided the layers have equal vertical travel time and a perfect reflector as a free surface, the reflection coefficients are generally reconstructed from the reflected pulses by way of solving simultaneous equations of the Toeplitz matrix form with the Levinson recursion method. There exists an alternative approach to solving this problem which by simple reasoning immediately turns out the (Levinson) recursion scheme. The method is based on formulas that relate to solving the forward problem. It resembles Kunetz's (1962) original inverse solution in as much as the computation of the reflection coefficients is based on the idea of separating the contribution of a primary from the sum of all multiples.