Validating the velocity model: the Hamburg Score

Abstract

The late Vladimir Glogovsky, with co-authors Evgeny Landa, Sergey Langman and Tijmen Jan Moser discuss the fundamental properties of the kinematic inversion problem which continue to challenge geophysicists. Recognizing the ‘ill-posed’ character of the inverse problem, they argue that it does not have a solution in a strictly defined sense. Acknowledging the importance and limitations of a priori information, they go on to present an approach to a ‘well-posed’ solution which relies on constructing an extension of the kinematic inverse problem by making additional assumptions and validating them.