Vertical exaggeration

The first task in interpretation of seismic data is to figure out the approximate numerical value of the vertical exaggeration. The vertical exaggeration is 2/v because it is the ratio of the apparant slope $\Delta \tau / \Delta x$to the actual slope $\Delta z/ \Delta x$where $\Delta \tau = 2\ \Delta z / v$.Since the velocity generally increases with depth, the vertical exaggeration generally decreases with depth.

For velocity-stratified media, the time-to-depth conversion formula is  

$$\tau (z) \ \ =\ \ \int_0^z \ {2\ dz \over v (z) } \ \ \ \ \ ... ...m or} \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ { d \tau \over dz }\ \ =\ \ {2 \over v }$$ (2)

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