Syllabus

Course Meeting Times

Lectures: 1 session / week, 2 hours / session

Lab work: 1 session / week, 1 hour / session

Prerequisites

Introduction to Seismology (12.510), Advanced Calculus for Engineers (18.075) or Mathematical Methods for Engineers I (18.085).

Overview

This course shall focus on the near-surface seismic imaging technologies, and the issues of near-surface statics corrections for seismic data processing. It starts with review of near-surface structures worldwide, seismic wave propagation in the near-surface areas, fundamentals in seismic statics calculations, and it is then going to cover the following subjects in details with theories and applications:

1. Refraction traveltime interpretation methods
2. Refraction delay-time solutions
3. First-arrival traveltime tomography
4. Early-arrival waveform tomography
5. Refraction traveltime and wavefield migration
6. Refraction wavefield interferometric migration
7. Near-surface dispersion-curve inversions
8. Wave-equation datuming and wavefield datuming
9. Velocity-independent datuming by interferometry
10. Velocity-independent datuming by Common-Focus Point (CFP)
11. Joint geophysical inversions

During this course, we will also invite a few experts in the seismic industry to give 20-min presentations to our class through the Internet videoconference. With the help of instructor, each student is going to select a research project to work with during this semester. In the final week of this course, students are going to present the research results. Successful studies shall be encouraged to be published.