Energy partition at the boundary between anisotropic media; Part two: Raytracing in layered, anisotropic media - comparison of traveltimes for synthetic and experimental results

Michael A. Slawinski, Raphaël A. Slawinski, R. James Brown

We present a ray-tracing method for layered, anisotropic media. The method is used to calculate traveltimes for a two-layer isotropic/anisotropic medium consisting of PVC and Phenolic CE. We compare the numerical results with experimental data, confirming the validity of the approach. Furthermore, the comparison illustrates that physical measurements of such a model are better described by the anisotropic approach than by the isotropic one.

The usefulness of our method can be extended to various modelling schemes, near- surface statics corrections, vertical-seismic-profile (VSP) studies and inversion. Equations used in ray tracing are, in general, analytic and can easily be coded.