Automatic first-break picking using the instantaneous traveltime attribute

Abstract

Picking the first breaks is an important step in seismic processing. The large volume of the seismic data calls for automatic and objective picking. We introduce a new automatic first-break picker, which uses specifically designed time windows and an iterative procedure based on the instantaneous traveltime attribute. The method is fast as it only uses a few FFT's per trace. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this automatic method by applying it on real test data.