oa Automated Travel Time Estimation

Although prestack depth migration has become a part of mainstream seismic imaging technology, its full application is limited in part by our ability to determine models of the earth quickly and accurately. Most current methods for analysing prestack images and updating the underlying earth model depend upon the complex, global relationship between the model and the moveout on image gathers. However, common focal point (CFP) technology (Berkhout, 1996a,b).breaks the model determination process into two simpler processes, operator estimation and tomographic inversion, which can both be automated.