1.
n. [Geophysics]
The dimensionless quality factor. It is the ratio of the
peak energy of a
wave to the dissipated energy. As waves travel, they lose energy with distance and time due to spherical
divergence and absorption. Such energy loss must be accounted for when restoring
seismic amplitudes to perform fluid and
lithologic interpretations, such as
amplitude versus
offset (
AVO) analysis. Q is also described as the reciprocal of attenuation, but that is not strictly correct because the attenuation coefficient has units of
inverse length.