Time Delay Estimation, Using Correlation Approaches Applied to Seismic Time Picking

Abstract

In wave propagation theories, many problems of multi-sensor systems utilize time delay in their solution in signal processing. This technique finds great utility in seismic exploration and static correction (low-velocity weathering), which compensates the difference in elevations of the surveyed land. Traditionally, cross-correlation approaches; such as phase delay, coherence ratio and higher order, for instance, bispectral techniques are the preferred methods of time delay estimation. In this work, we study the reliability of these approaches for estimating the time delay and proposed an interactive algorithm, which used the estimated time delay for automatically obtaining the first break times of seismic data signals; this is considered an essential step in static correlation stage. Here we show that the phase delay and coherence ratio are almost equivalent to the higher order (bispectral) correlation technique and take a computational time less than the higher order (bispectral) correlation, so is recommended to use.