SLANT STACKING AND ITS SIGNIFICANCE FOR ANISOTROPY

Slant stacking transforms seismic data, recorded as a function of source-receiver offset and travel time into the domain of intercept time tau and ray parameter p. The shape of the tau -p curves thus obtained is closely related to the slowness surfaces of the layers. A layer-stripping operation in the tau -p domain removes all effects of the layers above the target layer. The resulting curve is equal to the slowness surface of the layer except for a scaling factor containing the thickness and dip of the layer. The slowness surface is a characteristic surface for anisotropic media. This makes the tau -p-domain very suitable for detecting and describing anisotropic layers.