An Application of Genetic Algorithms in Seismic Refraction Interpretation

Seismic refraction is a conventional geophysical method for determining geological structures by making use of velocity differences of propagating waves in various rock types. Data interpretation to determine the structures are based on travel time and distance from the source to each receiver (geophone) presented in the form of a t-x graph. In addition to the many conventional methods, our paper evaluates here a Genetic Algorithm (GA) for the interpretation of seismic refraction data. The studied subsurface structures were 2-layer and 3-layer models with horizontal and dipping planar interfaces. Actual field tests were also used for the evaluation. Comparing the GA interpretation technique with the conventional Seismic Interpretation Program (SIP), the results showed that the GA can process seismic refraction data well and gives virtually exact solutions for the synthetic structures. On actual field data, the results are quite similar to those from SIP.