A direct method of estimating depth to a reflector from seismic wide-angle reflection times

The analysis of wide-angle recordings in controlled source seismics has been an important tool for imaging deep features of the lithosphere. Here we present a simple method of directly calculating the depth to a reflector from wide-angle reflection data without knowing any velocity information or the interface structure of the overlying layers. The method has also been extended to evaluate the average velocity above the reflector. Both theoretical and field examples demonstrate the efficiency of the method.