Calculation of Quality Factor (Reciprocal of Attenuation)

The quality factor represents the resistance encountered by seismic waves as they propagate through subsurface rock formations. Higher resistance values correspond to increased quality factor measurements, indicating faster attenuation rates. Calculating the quality factor requires well log data as primary input to accurately determine seismic wave attenuation properties. The implementation typically involves processing gamma ray, resistivity, and sonic log measurements through attenuation modeling algorithms. Additionally, the computation must account for numerous geological factors including rock density, compressibility, and medium proportionality ratios. Changes in these parameter values directly influence the resulting quality factor measurements. Therefore, accurate quality factor calculation is essential for reliable seismic wave prediction and simulation models, where code implementations often incorporate spectral ratio methods or frequency-shift algorithms to derive attenuation estimates from amplitude decay observations across different frequency bands.