Direct observation of a p-τ curve in a slant stacked wave field

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Abstract
The well known Wiechert-Herglotz technique for computing a velocity-depth profile from refraction seismograms uses data in the form of ray parameter as a function of intercept time (a p-τ curve). The technique of slant stacking used by reflection seismologists automatically produces a p-τ curve from a common shot profile, thereby bypassing arbitrary travel-time picking and several intermediate calculations of previous methods. Successful preliminary results are presented for both synthetic and real data. This method deteriorates for widely separated geophones and where a number of apparent sources with low inter-source coherency coexist in a single profile, but is capable of completely sorting out triplications in data with less extreme contrasts without human intervention.