Velocity model building by slope tomography

Bernard K. Law, Daniel O. Trad

Slope tomography method uses slopes and traveltimes of locally coherent reflected events to estimate the macro-velocity model from reflection data for depth imaging and full waveform inversion (FWI). Without the requirement of picking traveltimes on continuous reflection events, slope tomography is operationally more efficient than traditional reflection tomography. It is computationally more efficient than migration velocity (MVA) because it estimates the global velocity model simultaneously without layer stripping and expensive depth migration iterations. We review the slope tomography methods including CDR tomography, stereotomography, and adjoint stereotomography.