f Horizon Ray parameter analysis and its application for 3D inversion

The popular techniques of ray parameter estimation are based on stacking of data along traveltime curves. Several types of traveltime curve parametrization were introduced in practice. The ray parameter analysis, using the hyperbolic time curve for the local summation at CMP gathers, was proposed by Biondi (1992). To calculate the ray parameters at common shot/receiver gathers by this method, two sets of data should be processed: seismograms of CMP gathers and common offset gathers. We consider the technique of the determination of the ray parameters at common shot/receiver gathers. The time curve used in the technique describes the spherical wavefront. In the implementation presented, the estimated ray parameters serve as input information for the 3-D inversion algorithm (Sorin et al ., 1993).