A Review of the τ-p Transform, its Implementation and its Applications in Seismic Processing

The τ-p transform is a useful processing tool because it provides an increased separation between different seismic wave phenomena. Given that there is minimal deterioration of the data due to transform artefacts, a simplified interpretation of field records and better noise suppression can be obtained in the τ-p domain. Successful use of a τ-p processing application involves selecting a transform implementation and suppressing artefacts as appropriate to the problem at hand. In some cases, the transformation objective is to construct a plane-wave decomposition of the field record so that interpretation, deconvolution, inversion and/or stacking can be performed in the τ-p domain. Alternatively, the τ-p transform and its inverse can operate as a velocity filter to suppress strong coherent noise such as multiples, refractions and mode converted events. However, τ-p applications may not prove advantageous for coarsely sampled field records or for datasets that tend to produce persistent transform artefacts.