Improved modeling of spherical-wave AVO

Charles P. Ursenbach, Arnim B. Haase, Jonathan E. Downton

Spherical-wave reflection coefficients, which are vital in modeling supercritical reflections, are considerably more difficult to calculate than their plane-wave analogues. We seek to narrow this gap by performing one of the requisite integrations analytically. The key is to assume a wavelet of the Rayleigh form. The resulting reflection coefficients are accurate, even if the true wavelet is not a Rayleigh wavelet, as long as one follows a simple prescription for choosing the wavelet parameters. The method is also efficient enough to implement in an interactive program, and is thus promising for use in high-volume, supercritical modeling.