Quantifying resolving power of seismic systems

A quantitative formulation of vertical resolving power of seismic exploration systems is presented and is offered as a proposed characteristic, or standard, resolving power identified with individual systems. The formulation broadens the classical concept of resolution by taking into account the reflection waveform and the noise, in addition to the classical time variable. The principal feature in the formulation is the stipulation that the intratrace distribution of reflections and of noise be treated as random (Gaussian) distribution, which is regarded as the most general representation for seismic sections as a whole. Through this quantification of vertical resolving power and therefore of intratrace reflection quality, a number of elemental reflection properties that have been described only qualitatively in the past are expressed by simple formulas. The quantification is consistent with the concept that the resolving power of a noise‐free zero‐phase system with a flat spectral band response is propor...