Identification of events from 3D volumes of seismic data

Describes a method for extracting 3D events from a 3D volume of seismic data for the purposes of geophysical interpretation. An event is the recorded waveform caused by a seismic scatterer. It can be modeled as a hyperboloid with local perturbations. Extraction is difficult because of the local perturbations and, particularly, because events cross one another. The original data is in the form of 2D time sections which are vertical slices through the data volume. Once the event has been extracted, it is represented by fitting two types of surfaces. The first surface is a hyperboloid. The parameters that define the hyperboloid are used to determine geophysical parameters such as the position of the scatterer and the Earth´s average propagation velocity. The second is a smooth approximating surface calculated using a regularising term. This surface is useful for visualising regions where the event pulls away from pure hyperbolic form