A conventional amplitude variation with offset (AVO) inversion is based on geometrical seismics which exploit plane-wave reflection coefficients to describe the reflection phenomenon. Widely exploited linearizations of plane-wave coefficients are mostly valid at pre-critical offsets for media with almost flat and weak-contrast interfaces. Existing linearizations do not account for the seismic frequency range by ignoring the frequency content of the wavelet, which is a strong assumption. Plane-wave reflection coefficients do not fully describe the reflection of seismic waves at near-critical and post-critical offsets, because reflected seismic waves are typically generated by point sources.We propose an improved approach to AVO inversion, which is based on effective reflection coefficients (ERCs). ERCs generalize plane-wave coefficients for seismic waves generated by point sources and therefore more accurately describe near-critical and post-critical reflections where head waves are generated.
