f Cooling schedules for simulated annealing in the residual static estimation problem. Construction of master schedules

Varying thicknesses and velocities of the surface layers in reflection seismic surveys on land induce different delays on the seismic recordings, which make static corrections necessary. If the a priori information in terms of the field statics is insufficient, residual static corrections are needed. Normally, residual statics are estimated by traveltime picking methods. An alternative technique is to maximize the stack-power function (Ronen et al., 1985). Originally, the solution was found by linearized optimization along the axis in the parameter space, defined by the source and receiver static parameters. However, if large residual statics are required the objective function, the stack-power, has more than one maximum. Therefore, using linearized optimization the solution might easily be trapped in a local maximum.