Leading Edge March 2000 1. The article is written as a tutorial for the interpreter who may be unfamiliar with the physics of seismic reflections, and the general approach to inversion or estimation that is practiced today.
Acoustic impedance is an intermediate property directly related to the data.
It is not the only possibility velocity, Poisson ratio, etc. are other possibilities. Generally, poorly quantified or prior notes can be used to set the starting model which can be allowed to vary to fit the other more locally informative seismic data. Figure 1 is only suggestive of the value of the inversion in terms of identifying the structure of the subsurface, rather than relying on the wiggles and sidelobes to obscure the structure problem is that the wiggles are data, the inversion is removed and may be less reliable no measure of reliability is usually available. Figure 2 is also illustrative broader frequency content is there, but where does it come from again, no measure of uncertainty. Naturally there is more information this example does not show what was used to insert it.