Estimating seabed velocities from normal modes

Abstract

In this Master Thesis a method for estimating seabed p-wave velocities from normal mode seismic data is developed. This is done through forward modeling using two dimensional finite difference modeling to generate synthetic data based on a given parallel two layered laterally varying seabed velocity model and a constant two layered density model, with a common fixed water depth. A semblance inversion technique is developed in MATLAB using the period equation eqref{eq:period} and the resulting velocity profiles is plotted against the exact velocity model to check the validity of the estimates. The same method is extended to estimations of seabed densities. For analysis of the robustness of the method, analysis with added pseudo random noise is preformed.The results shows a good performance of the semblance method to reproduce the model velocity parameters. The introduction of noise is handled well and decent results are obtained for significantly low signal to noise ratios.It suggests that the semblance method is applicable to use for determination of other parameters influencing the normal mode response signal.