An experience in seismic amplitude processing

The source in seismic reflection surveys generates elastic waves in the ground. These may be considered as a transient disturbance which radiates outwards into the earth. Along the propagation path, inhomogeneous, anisotropic and imperfectly elastic media are encountered, and hence the amplitude of the disturbance will decay in a complicated manner as it propagates, dependent on the charactéristics of the media through which it passes. The amplitude of the reflected signal which we attribute to a certain horizon cannot therefore be directly related to the contrast in velocities and densities encountered by the seismic wavelet at the reflector, because many other perturbing factors exist.