Journal of Applied Geophysics 82 (2012) 137–144

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Journal of Applied Geophysics

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Estimation of near-surface quality factors by constrained inversion of Rayleigh-wave

attenuation coefficients
Jianghai Xia c,⁎, Yixian Xu b, Richard D. Miller a, Julian Ivanov a
a
Kansas Geological Survey, The University of Kansas, 1930 Constant Avenue, Lawrence, KS 66047-3726, USA
b
State Key Laboratory of Geological Processes and Mineral Resources, The China University of Geosciences, 388 Rumo Rd., Wuhan, Hubei 430074, China
c
Subsurface Imaging and Sensing Laboratory, The China University of Geosciences, 388 Rumo Rd., Wuhan, Hubei 430074, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Quality factors (Q) of near-surface materials are as important as velocities of the materials in many applica-
Received 16 December 2011 tions. Only phase information of surface-wave data is utilized when high-frequency (≥ 2 Hz) surface-wave
Accepted 6 March 2012 data are routinely inverted to determine near-surface shear (S)-wave velocities. Amplitude information of
Available online 13 March 2012
high-frequency surface-wave data can be used to determine quality factors of near-surface materials.
Given S-wave velocity, compressional (P)-wave velocity, and Rayleigh-wave phase velocities, it is feasible
Keywords:
Rayleigh wave
to solve for S-wave quality factor QS and P-wave quality factor QP (for some specific velocity models)
Attenuation coefficient down to 30 m below the ground surface in many settings by inverting high-frequency Rayleigh-wave atten-
Quality factor uation coefficients in a layered earth model. Amplitude of seismic data is an exponential function of attenu-
Constrained inversion ation coefficients. When calculating attenuation coefficients from changes in amplitude, this nonlinear nature
would result in that small variations in amplitude cause huge changes in attenuation coefficients. This result
suggests data (attenuation coefficients) that normally possess large errors could eventually transfer to a
model (quality factors); therefore, constraints (or a priori information) on models are necessary. Because
an inversion system to solve this problem is unstable, a regularization parameter must be introduced into
an inversion algorithm to stabilize the inversion. These characteristics of the inversion problem allow us to
solve the problem as a constrained and regularized linear system. Usually, a set of models that meet the de-
fined constraints can be obtained by solving the system. Based on the linear nature of the inversion system, a
smooth model can be selected from the set of models as a solution of the inversion using the L-curve method.
This approach is a trade-off solution between data misfit and model length. Several real-world examples
demonstrate the importance of constraints in finding acceptable realistic quality factors from empirical data.
© 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction factors must be known to fully understand seismic-wave propagation

The most common measure of seismic-wave attenuation is the
dimensionless quality factor Q or its inverse Q − 1 (dissipation factor).
As an intrinsic rock property, Q represents the ratio of stored to dissi-
pated energy (Johnston and Toksöz, 1981). The quality factor as a
function of depth is routinely of fundamental interest in many
groundwater, engineering, and environmental studies, as well as in
oil exploration and earthquake seismology. A desire to understand
the attenuative properties of the earth is based on the observations
that seismic-wave amplitudes are reduced as waves propagate
through an elastic medium. This amplitude reduction is generally fre-
quency dependent and, more importantly, attenuation characteristics
can reveal unique information about lithology, physical state, and de-
gree of rock saturation (Toksöz and Johnston, 1981). The quality
⁎ Corresponding author at: Subsurface Imaging and Sensing Laboratory, The China
University of Geosciences, 388 Rumo Rd., Wuhan, Hubei 430074, China. Tel.: + 86 27
6788 3685.
E-mail addresses: jianghai_xia@yahoo.com, jxia@cug.edu.cn (J. Xia).
in the earth. Phase information of high-frequency Rayleigh waves is
directly related to the shear (S)-wave velocity of near-surface mate-
rials and their amplitude information related to the quality factors.
Laboratory experiments (Johnston et al., 1979) show that Q may
be independent of frequency over a broad bandwidth (10 − 2–
10 7 Hz), especially for some dry rocks. Q − 1 in liquids, however, is
proportional to frequency so that in some highly porous and perme-
able rocks Q − 1 may contain a frequency-dependent component.
This component may be negligible at seismic frequency, even in un-
consolidated marine sediments (Johnston et al., 1979). Mitchell
(1975) investigated Q structure of the upper crust in North America
by inverting Rayleigh-wave attenuation coefficients in a layered
earth model. In his work, Q was independent of frequency. Although
some authors suggest that near-surface Q may be frequency depen-
dent (Jeng et al., 1999), Xia et al. (2002) followed the laboratory
results (Johnston, 1981) and Mitchell's work (1975) that Q is inde-
pendent of frequency, allowing determination of Q as a function of
depth based on amplitude attenuation of Rayleigh-wave data. The
quality factor Q as a function of depth, which is directly related to

0926-9851/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jappgeo.2012.03.003
138 J. Xia et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 82 (2012) 137–144

the material damping ratio D (= 0.5Q − 1) (Lai and Rix, 1998; Rix et Marquardt, 1965). The regularization parameter acts as a constraint
al., 2000), is of fundamental interest in earthquake engineering on the model space (Tarantola, 1987) and can be determined by a
(Kramer, 1996), geotechnical engineering, ground-water, and envi- trial-and-error method, especially because the number of unknowns
ronmental studies, as well as in oil exploration and earthquake seis- is less than the number of observed data after discretizing an earth
mology. A desire to understand the attenuative properties of the model for inversion of dispersion curves (e.g., Xia et al., 1999, 2002,
earth is based on the observations that seismic-wave amplitudes are 2003, 2010, in press) or assuming a specific nonlayered earth model
reduced as waves propagate through a dissipative medium. (Xia et al., 2006). A trade-off solution, equivalently, is a smoothed so-
Modeling results that examined the relationship between lution calculated by a truncated inverse of a data kernel (Hansen,
Rayleigh-wave attenuation coefficients and compressional (P)-wave 1998; Parker, 1994) with the singular value decomposition (Golub
and S-wave quality factors (QP and QS) (Xia et al., 2002) suggested and Reinsch, 1970; Lanczos, 1961).
that it is feasible to invert attenuation coefficients of Rayleigh waves In this study, a constrained linear system was solved by introduc-
for quality factors. Modeling analysis also showed that QP may be ing a regularization parameter for quality factors in a layered earth
inverted when Vs/Vp is greater than 0.45, a situation which is com- model (Xia et al., 2002). After a set of feasible solutions is found, we
mon in oil industry and crust seismology studies, and which also is
occasionally encountered in near-surface materials. Modeling results
also suggested that most contributions to Rayleigh-wave attenuation
coefficients from QP are in a relatively higher frequency range while
contributions from QS are in a lower frequency range. Using different
weighting, therefore, on QP and QS in different frequency ranges may
increase the possibility of obtaining QP. Modeling results (Xia et al.,
2002), in addition, reveal that the stability of the inversion system
for quality factors is much worse than that for S-wave velocities.
Therefore, regularization and/or constraints on the quality factors
are/is essential.
When no a priori information on the earth model is available, com-
mon practice is to seek a regularized solution that minimizes data
misfit and the length of an earth model (roughness of a model), for
example, a regularized least-squares solution (Levenberg, 1944;

Fig. 1. (a) Because of the linear nature of the system (Eq. (1)), a plot of model lengths Fig. 2. (a) A 24-channel streamer was used to record Rayleigh-wave data. (b) A seismic
vs. data misfits normally shows the shape of an L-curve. (b) An example of an L-curve source used in data acquisition was a rubber-band assisted weight drop vertically
generated with different damping factors. impacting on a plate and the streamer in the back of the photo.
 J. Xia et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 82 (2012) 137–144 139

use the L-curve method (Hansen, 1992, 1998; Lawson and Hanson,
1974; Tikhonov and Arsenin, 1977) to determine an optimal regular-
ization parameter and obtain a trade-off solution from the set of fea-
sible solutions.
2. Basic equations
We build on Kudo and Shima's (1970) work to calculate the atten-
uation coefficients between two traces, U ðx þ dx; t Þ ¼ U ðx; t Þe−αdx ,
where U is Rayleigh-wave amplitude, α is a Rayleigh-wave attenua-
tion coefficient, and x and dx are the nearest source-geophone offset
and a geophone interval, respectively. After the Fourier transform
with respect to time t, we obtain

The relationship between Rayleigh-wave attenuation coefficients  qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi

 ðxþdx; f Þ xþdx
and the quality factors for P and S waves of a layered model were ln WW ðx; f Þ  x
given by Anderson et al. (1965) as: αR ð f Þ ¼ − ; ð2Þ
dx
" #
πf Xn
−1
Xn
−1
αR ð f Þ ¼ P i ð f ÞQ Pi þ S i ð f ÞQ Si ; ð1Þ where α R ð f Þ is the Rayleigh-wave attenuation coefficient as a q
func-
ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
C 2R ð f Þ i¼1 i¼1 tion of frequency f, W(f) is the amplitude at frequency f, and xþdx x
is the correction for the cylindrical divergence.
where P i ð f Þ ¼ V Pi ∂C∂VR ð f Þ, Si ð f Þ ¼ V Si ∂C∂VR ðf Þ, α R ð f Þ is the Rayleigh-wave
Pi Si
attenuation coefficient in 1/length, f is frequency in Hz, QPi and QSi 3. Constrained inversion system
are the quality factors for P and S waves of the ith layer, respectively;
VPi and VSi are the P-wave velocity and S-wave velocity of the ith Eq. (1) manifests the linear relationship between Rayleigh-wave
layer, respectively; CR(f) is Rayleigh-wave phase velocity, and n is attenuation coefficients and the dissipation factors for P and S
the number of layers of a layered earth model. waves ( Q −1P and Q −1 S ). Theoretically, after determining S-wave

Fig. 3. (a) Raw Rayleigh-wave data (shot 1732) used for the first example. (b) Attenuation coefficients. Those labeled “Measured” were calculated by Eq. (2) and those labeled
“Final” were calculated by Eq. (1) with inverted quality factors shown in panel d. (c) The L-curve used to determine the trade-off value of a damping factor (a solid square). Figures
next to the symbols are values of damping factors associated with the solutions. (d) A trade-off QS model (in the logarithmic scale) under the constraint 0 b QS b 100.
140 J. Xia et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 82 (2012) 137–144

  
velocities by inverting Rayleigh-wave phase velocities (Xia et al.,  → → 
diagonal matrix, ϕd ¼  
S A X − B  is the data misfit, and ϕm ¼
1999) and measuring near-surface P-wave velocities by other seismic → 2
methods, such as reflection (Hunter et al., 1984; Steeples and Miller,   →
X  is the model length, which is the maximum component of X .
1990), refraction (Palmer, 1980), and/or tomography methods ∞

(Ivanov et al., 2006; Zhang and Toksöz, 1998), the dissipation factors
(Q −1
P and Q −1
S ) can be inverted directly for noise-free data using Eq.
(1). Because Eq. (1) is a linear system, the same method used in Xia
et al. (1999) can be directly employed to solve QS and/or QP from
Rayleigh-wave attenuation coefficients. Eq. (1) can be written as a
matrix form
→ →
ð3Þ
A X ¼B ðxi > 0Þ;
→
where X is a vector of inverse quality →
factors (a model vector 1/Q)
with xi as the ith component, the B is an attenuation coefficient (a
data vector α R ðf Þ), and A is a data kernel matrix (Menke, 1984) deter-
mined by Eq. (1). Menke (1984) discussed an algorithm to solve Eq.
(3). Eq. (3) will provide accurate QP and QS if the attenuation coeffi-
cients contain no error as a synthetic example (Xia et al., 2002). Solu-
tions of Eq. (3) are not guaranteed to exist or solutions may possess
an unacceptable error when attenuation coefficients possess errors.
The nonlinear nature of amplitude as an exponential function of at-
tenuation coefficients means that small variations in amplitude
cause large changes in attenuation coefficients, especially for large Q
values. To constrain the model space, we introduce a constraint for
quality factors, that is 0 b Qi b ai, where ai is a constant. This constraint
is equivalent to xi > ci > 0, where ci is 1/ai. Because of the instability of
Eq. (3), Xia et al. (2002) introduced a damping factor into the system.
Therefore our inversion problem can be described by the following
constrained system:
Because of the linear nature of the system (Eq. (1)), a plot of (ϕm,
ϕd) normally shows the shape of an L-curve although interpreting
an L-curve usually requires experience.
Models corresponding to small damping factors usually possess
large errors and result in very long model lengths with small data
misfits. This is because the models try to represent errors in data
(solutions on the right side of a trade-off curve in Fig. 1b). On the
other hand, models corresponding to large damping factors are
usually stable and result in large data misfits with short model
lengths (solutions on the left side of a trade-off curve in Fig. 1b).
Trade-off models could be found in the trade-off zone on the plot of
(ϕm, ϕd).
5. Real-world examples
A shallow Rayleigh-wave survey was conducted in an arid region
of the Southwestern United States during the spring of 2010. The
objective of this survey was to determine the seismic properties of
near-surface sediments. Rayleigh-wave data were acquired using a
towed streamer that consisted of 24 4.5-Hz vertical component geo-
phones with a nearest-offset of 41 m and a geophone interval of
1.2 m (Fig. 2a). The seismic source was an accelerated weight drop

→ →
ðA þ λI Þ X ¼B ðxi > ci > 0Þ; ð4Þ

where I is the unitary matrix, λ is a damping factor and ci is a constant

that constrains the model space for xi. The question is how to deter-
mine the optimal damping factor.

4. L-curve method

The art of superposing regularization and/or constraints provides

numerous opportunities for geophysicists to solve geophysical in-
verse problems using their knowledge of the nature of a specific
data set and an earth model. To reduce instability of geophysical in-
verse problems with some a priori information on the earth model
(e.g., Li and Oldenburg, 1996, 2000), a regularized solution that min-
imizes data misfit and a length of difference between an earth model
and a reference model is normally necessary (Zhdanov, 2002; de-
tailed discussion can also be found in Oldenburg and Li, 2005). The
regularization parameter for these inverse methods can be deter-
mined using Tikhonov's method or the L-curve method (Hansen,
1992, 1998; Lawson and Hanson, 1974; Tikhonov and Arsenin,
1977). In the case of no a priori information, such as in our real
data, we seek a regularized solution that is a trade-off between data
(attenuation coefficient) misfit and model (quality factor) length. Ap-
plications of the L-curve (Fig. 1a) for the inversion of geophysical data
are common in the literature (e.g., Hansen, 1992; Li and Oldenburg,
1999). Herein, an L-value is defined as

     →
→  → → 
L X;λ ¼ S A X − B  þ λ 
X  ¼ ϕd þ λϕm ; ð5Þ
  ∞ Fig. 4. (a) Attenuation coefficients calculated from shot 1732. Those labeled “Mea-
2
sured” were calculated by Eq. (2), those labeled “Constrained” were the same as
those labeled “Final” in Fig. 3b, and those labeled “Unconstrained” were calculated by
where S is related to a weighting matrix W (= S TS) that is deter- Eq. (1) with inverted quality factors shown in panel b. (b) An inverted QS model (in
mined by errors in attenuation coefficients. Since the weighting the logarithmic scale) without the constraint 0 b QS b 100 produced a quality factor of
matrix W is both diagonal and positive (Xia et al., 1999), S is also a 290 at a depth of around 10 m.
 J. Xia et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 82 (2012) 137–144 141

vertically impacting on a plate pressure coupled to the ground surface
(Fig. 2b).
Although even Rayleigh-wave data (Fig. 3a) possess some noise,
dominant Rayleigh wave energy in the time window of between
200 and 400 ms allowed us to directly calculate attenuation coeffi-
cients (triangles in Fig. 3b) using Eq. (2). After estimating S-wave
velocities for a layered model by inverting Rayleigh-wave phase
velocities (Xia et al., 1999), we are able to estimate QS with the algo-
rithm discussed in the previous sections.
In solving for quality factors, we assumed QP = 2QS in inversion.
Because QS for near-surface sediments are rarely over 100 (Lai and
Rix, 1998; Sheriff and Geldart, 1985), we set a constraint of
0 b QSi b 100 for all i, which results in constant ci in Eq. (4) of 0.01.
We found that the smallest feasible damping factor λ in Eq. (4) was
0.026. With the damping factor changing up to 0.055 at an interval
of 0.001, we identified possible solutions (Fig. 3c) that produced a
nearly perfect L-curve. The first model on the right in Fig. 3c associat-
ed with the smallest damping factor (0.026) possesses the longest
model length of 98.2 (b100) and the smallest data misfit (0.0056).
The first model on the left (Fig. 3c) associated with the largest
damping factor (0.055) possesses the shortest model length (78.1)
and the largest data misfit (0.0086).
Models in the ranges at the both ends are obviously not the best
solution. We need to find a model in the trade-off zone as indicated
in Fig. 1b. A trade-off model associated with the trade-off damping
factor (0.036) is indicated by a solid square in Fig. 3c, which produced
a model with a model length of 86 and data misfit of 0.0068 (Fig. 3c).
The attenuation coefficients calculated from the trade-off model
(Fig. 3d) are shown by solid squares in Fig. 3b. Inverted S-wave qual-
ity factors (QS) are within the constrained range (Fig. 3d).
Constraining xi > 0.01 (i.e., 0 b QSi b 100) is necessary for a well
behaved inversion (Eq. (3)). If this constraint is removed, using the
L-curve method we may end up an improved fit of the attenuation
coefficients (Fig. 4a) compared to what was shown in Fig. 3b but
have to contend with wild variation in solutions (Fig. 4b). Clearly, a
quality factor of nearly 290 at a depth of around 10 m is too large
and unrealistic for the near-surface sediments at this site.
Quality (S/N and uniformity in energy arrivals) of Rayleigh-wave
data in the second example (Fig. 5a) is higher than the first example.
We calculated attenuation coefficients (triangles in Fig. 5b) using

Fig. 5. (a) Raw Rayleigh-wave data (shot 2420) used for the second example. (b) Attenuation coefficients. Those labeled “Measured” were calculated using Eq. (2) and those labeled
“Final” were calculated using Eq. (1) with inverted quality factors shown in panel d. (c) The L-curve used to determine the trade-off value of a damping factor (a solid square).
Figures next to the symbols are values of damping factors associated with the solutions. (d) A trade-off QS model (in the logarithmic scale) under the constraint 0 b QS b 100.
142 J. Xia et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 82 (2012) 137–144

Eq. (2). Consistent with the last example, we assumed QP = 2QS in in-
version. Also as in the first example, a constraint of 0 b QSi b 100 is set
for all i. We found that the smallest feasible damping factor was
0.023. The damping factor changed up to 0.052 at an interval of
0.001 resulting in possible solutions that produced a nearly perfect
L-curve (Fig. 5c).
The first model on the right of Fig. 5c associated with the smallest
damping factor (0.023) possesses the longest model length of 98.9
(b100) and the smallest data misfit (0.0048). The first model on the
left of Fig. 5c associated with the largest damping factor (0.052) pos-
sesses the shortest model length (79.3) and the largest data misfit
(0.0063). A trade-off damping factor of 0.031 was chosen (a solid
square in Fig. 5c), which produced a model with a model length of
87.3 and data misfit of 0.0052 (Fig. 5c). The attenuation coefficients
calculated from the trade-off model (Fig. 5d) are shown by solid
squares in Fig. 5b. Inverted S-wave quality factors (Fig. 5d) are within
the constrained range. If the constraint xi > 0.01 is not imposed during
the inversion, the L-curve method may produce a model with an
unrealistic QS of nearly 300 at a depth of 7 m.
Data quality of the third example (Fig. 6a) is virtually the same as
the second example. Using the same procedure and constraint as the
first two examples, we calculated attenuation coefficients (triangles
in Fig. 6b) and determined the trade-off damping factor from the
L-curve (Fig. 6c). A trade-off damping factor 0.16 was chosen
(a solid square in Fig. 6c), which produced a model with a model
length of 97.8 (b100) and data misfit of 0.0029. The attenuation coef-
ficients calculated from the trade-off model (Fig. 6d) are shown by
solid squares in Fig. 6b. Inverted S-wave quality factors are within
the constrained range. If the constraint xi > 0.01 is not imposed in
the inversion system, the L-curve method can produce a model with
QS of over 700 at a depth of 8 m, which is way outside realistic values
for near-surface sediments.
A constraint xi > 0.01 (equivalent to 0 b QS b 100) limits the search
range in the model space. We expect fittingness in the data space to
decrease as the price we have to pay for no a priori information on
quality factors at an investigation site. We applied the same proce-
dure and constraint as the previous examples to data shown in
Fig. 7a. The attenuation coefficients calculated from the data
(Fig. 7a) are indicated by triangles in Fig. 7b. A smooth model was
obtained for QS under the constraint xi > 0.01 (diamonds in Fig. 7c).
Necessity of constraints was demonstrated by the unrealistic quality
factor at a depth of 9 m (over 300) when no constraints were applied

Fig. 6. (a) Raw Rayleigh-wave data (shot 2350) used for the third example. (b) Attenuation coefficients. Those labeled “Measured” were calculated using Eq. (2) and those labeled
“Final” were calculated using Eq. (1) with inverted quality factors shown in panel d. (c) The L-curve used to determine the trade-off value of a damping factor (a solid square).
Figures next to the symbols are values of damping factors associated with the solutions. (d) A trade-off QS model (in the logarithmic scale) under the constraint 0 b QS b 100.
 J. Xia et al. / Journal of Applied Geophysics 82 (2012) 137–144
Fig. 7. (a) Raw Rayleigh-wave data (shot 1778). (b) Attenuation coefficients. Those labeled “Measured” were calculated using Eq. (2), those labeled “Constrained” were calculated
using Eq. (1) with inverted quality factors labeled “Inverted Qs with constraint” in panel c, and those labeled “Unconstrained” were calculated using Eq. (1) with inverted quality
factors labeled “Inverted Qs without constraint” in panel c. (c) Inverted quality factors. Those labeled “Inverted Qs with constraint” were trade-off models under the constraint
0 b QS b 100 and those labeled “Inverted Qs without constraint” were trade-off models without the constraint 0 b QS b 100.
to the system (Fig. 7c). As expected, the fittingness (difference
between values in triangles and values in squares in Fig. 7b) in the
data space resulted from the model determined under the constraint
xi > 0.01 (squares in Fig. 7c) is not as good as the fittingness (differ-
ence between values in triangles and values in diamonds in Fig. 7b)
resulting from the model determined without the constraint
xi > 0.01 (diamonds in Fig. 7c). The fittingness can be improved by
changing the constraint; however this requires a priori information
on quality factors at the investigation site.
6. Conclusions
We discussed a new algorithm to estimate near-surface quality
factors by using constrained inversion of attenuation coefficients of
high-frequency Rayleigh waves. Instability of the inversion can be im-
proved by introducing a damping factor. A set of feasible solutions
with different damping factors can be found when quality factors
are constrained. The L-curve method then provides a valuable mea-
sure of an optimal damping factor from a feasible set of solutions.
Real-world examples demonstrated that the proposed algorithm is
stable and provides realistic quality factor models, which is advance-
ment in comparison to existing algorithms.
Although the proposed algorithm works reasonably well for these
data sets because the inversion system is linear, it may not work for
noisy data (low S/N or erratic energy arrival characteristics). This is
the nature of the inversion system (Eq. (4)).
Acknowledgments
The authors thank Recep (Ray) Cakir for the thoughtful and con-
structive comments.
143
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