In the February 1991 issue of GEOPHYSICS, Anton Ziolkowski gives a scathing criticism of statistical wavelet estimation methods. Among other points, Ziolkowski questions the validity of the randomness assumption. This assumption allows statistical methods to estimate the seismic source wavelet autocorrelation from the seismic trace autocorrelation. In this study, we examine this traditional ass...

Algorithms for inversion of seismic prestack AVO data into lithology-fluid classes in a vertical profile are evaluated. The inversion is defined in a Bayesian setting where the prior model for the lithology-fluid classes is a Markov chain, and the likelihood model relates seismic data and elastic material properties to these classes. The likelihood model is approximated such that the posterior ...

We present new data on the lithospheric bulge in the vicinity of the Loyalty and New Hebrides Islands, and attempt to interpret the difference of the topographic profile of the outer wall of the New Hebrides trench from a theoretical profile. The free edge of the lithospheric plate appears to correspond to a line of maximum seismic strain release. The uplift rate and consequently the subduction...

S U M M A R Y A 2-D upper crustal structural profile with seven steeply dipping faults was constructed from the Los Angeles Region Seismic Experiment phase II (LARSE II) seismic refraction data recorded over the north central Transverse ranges and adjacent Mojave desert in southern California. The profile extends to a depth of approximately 4 km. The faults were identified from distinctive feat...

The seismic refraction technique provides a simplified characterization of relatively large volumes of the subsurface in 2-dimensional (distance and depth) profiles. Compression wave (p-wave) velocities, the typical measured geologic material parameter, are a function of the moduli of the various unsaturated material masses in the subsurface profile. In saturated media, p-wave velocities are in...

Accurate interpretation of seismic traveltimes and amplitudes in the exploration and global scales is complicated by the band-limited nature of seismic data. We discovered a stochastic method to reduce a seismic waveform into a most probable constituent spike train. Model waveforms were constructed from a set of candidate spike trains convolved with a source wavelet estimate. For each model wav...