Image Reconstruction and Limitations in Seismic Tomography

The tomography technique in image reconstruction has been used over 40 years in medical science with great success. When medical tomography is compared with the seismic tomography, the success of the medical tomography is clear and one of the most important reasons is the ray coverage directly connected to the data acquisition geometry. To understand the importance of spread system geometry and the achievement of medical tomography, a data acquisition geometry similar to the medical one was tested and compared with the classical geophysical data acquisition geometries on several well known geological structures. The tomograms of the most encountered geological structures and subsurface models showed us that the proper initial velocity models can yield to obtain high quality images. Proper initial model effectiveness on the final result of the image reconstruction will be discussed with the success and limitations of the seismic tomography in the areas of environmental, geotechnical and engineering geophysics.