Dictionary:Deconvolution

(de kon vō’ lū sh∂n) 1. A process designed to restore a waveshape to the form it had before it underwent a linear filtering action (convolution); inverse filtering. The objective of deconvolution is to nullify objectionable effects of an earlier filter action and thus improve the recognizability and resolution of reflected events. May mean (a) system deconvolution to remove the filtering effect of the recording system; (b) dereverberation or deringing to remove the filtering action of a water layer; see also Backus filter and gapped deconvolution; (c) predictive deconvolution to attenuate multiples that involve the surface or near-surface reflectors; (d) deghosting to remove the effects of energy that leaves the source in the upward direction; (e) whitening or equalizing to make all frequency components within a band-pass equal in amplitude; (f) shaping the amplitude-frequency and/or phase response to match that of adjacent channels; or (g) wavelet processing (q.v.). Deconvolution results may vary markedly with different phase assumptions, gate locations or widths, or operator lengths. Often involves Wiener filtering (q.v.). Also called decomposition. See Sheriff and Geldart (1995, 285 and 292–303). 2. Potential maps, well logs, and other data sets besides time series may be deconvolved.