Patent ID: 7649805

Claim:
A method of providing a dispersion curve for acoustic data comprising the steps of: using an analyzer unit to receive a time series of acoustic data associated with a plurality of sensors having different transmitter-receiver spacings; generate a plurality of time-frequency representations from the received time series; identify a characteristic feature in the time-frequency representations; select at least one frequency; define a kernel comprising: estimating a time location of the characteristic feature at the selected frequency; associating a corresponding characteristic feature for ones of the spacings at the selected frequency; fitting at least a segment of a line through at least some of the time locations of the associated characteristic features, plotted against the corresponding spacings; estimating group slowness at the selected frequency based at least in-part on an indication of fitted line segment slope; estimating a phase difference between sensors; estimating an attenuation between sensors; using the estimated phase difference and group slowness to estimate a phase slowness; and repeat the kernel for other frequencies of interest, obtain a dispersion curve comprising the group slowness, the phase slowness, and the attenuation as a function of frequency, and provide the dispersion curve in tangible form.