Nonstretch NMO

Abstract

We describe a new implementation of the normal‐moveout (NMO) correction that is routinely applied to common‐midpoint (CMP) reflections prior to stacking. The procedure, called nonstretch NMO, automatically avoids the undesirable stretch effects that are present in conventional NMO. Under nonstretch NMO, a significant range of large offsets that normally would be muted in the case of conventional NMO can be kept and used, thereby leading to better stack and velocity determinations. We illustrate the use of nonstretch NMO by applying it to synthetic and real data sets obtained from high‐resolution (HR) seismic and ground‐penetrating radar (GPR) measurements.