Snell-driven beam-stack

Carlos A. Cunha Filho

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ABSTRACT

Combining the concepts of Snell-rays and beam-stack, I define a transform that maps prestack data from the offset-traveltime domain into the vertical-traveltime-Snell-parameter domain. The transform is defined for a common-mid-point (CMP) gather, and it requires the basic assumption that the earth can be well approximated by a stack of horizontal layers. Each output trace represents the reflections associated with the propagation of a Snell beam through the layers of the medium. Energy is summed up, inside the beam, along the reflections, and divergence effects for either a point or line source are properly compensated for by the transform.