Imaging scattered seismic surface waves

ABSTRACT Surface‐wave analysis is a key tool for seismologists, ranging from near‐surface characterization in geotechnical applications to global seismology. Even in exploration seismology, where surface waves are regarded as a kind of noise, the fact that they typically represent the bulk of the recorded energy makes an understanding of surface‐wave propagation important. On the other hand, the heterogeneity of the near surface can make such analyses difficult since the heterogeneity is responsible for scattering and mode conversion. Here, we show how multichannel seismic records of scattered surface waves can be used to obtain spatial images of the heterogeneity. We discuss both data processing and imaging and illustrate our method on laboratory‐scale data. Further, synthetic examples show that we can locate individual scatterers accurately, even when many scatterers produce interfering surface waves. Our laboratory results show that the method has the potential to locate near‐surface heterogeneities in the field.