A bayesian approach for determining velocity and uncertainty estimates from seismic cone penetrometer testing or vertical seismic profiling data

Canadian Geotechnical Journal
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Abstract

Conventional processing methods for seismic cone penetrometer data present several shortcomings, most notably the absence of a robust velocity model uncertainty estimate. We propose a new seismic cone penetrometer testing (SCPT) data-processing approach that employs Bayesian methods to map measured data errors into quantitative estimates of model uncertainty. We first calculate travel-time differences for all permutations of seismic trace pairs. That is, we cross-correlate each trace at each measurement location with every trace at every other measurement location to determine travel-time differences that are not biased by the choice of any particular reference trace and to thoroughly characterize data error. We calculate a forward operator that accounts for the different ray paths for each measurement location, including refraction at layer boundaries. We then use a Bayesian inversion scheme to obtain the most likely slowness (the reciprocal of velocity) and a distribution of probable slowness values for each model layer. The result is a velocity model that is based on correct ray paths, with uncertainty bounds that are based on the data error.

Publication type Article
Publication Subtype Journal Article
Title A bayesian approach for determining velocity and uncertainty estimates from seismic cone penetrometer testing or vertical seismic profiling data
Series title Canadian Geotechnical Journal
DOI 10.1139/t11-012
Volume 48
Issue 7
Year Published 2011
Language English
Publisher Canadian Science Publishing
Contributing office(s) Central Energy Resources Science Center
Description 9 p.
First page 1061
Last page 1069
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