Seismic exploration using exactly invertible discrete transformation into tau-p space

摘要

Disclosed are a method and a system for discrete transformation of measurements such as seismic data into and out of tau-p space which is both exact and practical in terms of processing time. The measurements can be filtered or otherwise processed in tau-p space in ways which are not practical or possible in their original space. Since the transformations into and out of tau-p space are exact, the filtered and transformed measurements are free of errors and distortions that perturb known approximate transforms which can be performed in a reasonable time. When the transformation process is carried out in frequency space, it is done frequency-by-frequency, and when it is carried out in the spatial domain, it can utilize a transformation matrix having a block-circulant structure. In each case, the transformation process and matrix have a structure which substantially reduces storage and processing requirements as compared with known prior art.