In this thesis I present a sequential inversion method that utilizes plane-wave synthesis imaging as a major tool in both velocity estimation and angle-dependent reflectivity recovery. Plane-wave synthesis imaging consists of two steps, wave stack and imaging of synthesized section. Wave stack that is based on the Huygens' principle synthesizes a wavefront by stacking traces over common geophone gather. The imaging of the wave-stacked section is performed like the conventional shot profile imaging Claerbout (1985).
In chapter 2, I show how to apply the imaging method by wavefront synthesis as well as theoretical background and some examples. In addition, I show how to construct a common incidence angle image section for a given target reflector, which provides a fundamental framework for tomographic velocity estimation (chapter 4) and angle-dependent reflectivity recovery (chapter 5).