The Polarization of Seismic Waves and its Potential for Studying the Rocks Surrounding the Borehole

Abstract

The idea of employing wave polarization in seismic exploration as an additional parameter of the wave field is due to G. A. Gamburtzev, Member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, who in the fifties had already initiated studies of polarization, which resulted in the creation of the azimuthal method of seismic studies [9]. Strong distortion introduced by the low-velocity zone and by the upper portion of the geologic section, however, made the transition from polarization parameters at a point to the parameters of a wave in space impossible. Experimental surface and down-hole studies of polarization [15] have demonstrated the expediency of using the polarization in surface observations chiefly for wave discrimination, and this formed the basis of the polarization-positional correlation method [2], a specific feature of the polarization method.