Abstract:The joint inversion of PP and PS waves are widely studied in recent years with the developments of multi-wave and multi-component seismic explorations. As a kind of S wave, PS wave can not propagate through fluids and therefore is more sensitive to the internal structure of rock fabrics. The combined use of PP and PS wave data might provide better means to identify elastic impedance and rock property parameters from multi-wave seismic data and thereby to reduce the uncertainty in the seismic inversion. The recent research developments in the joint inversion methods of PP and PS waves are reviewed in this paper. Firstly, a brief introduction of the basic theory of the joint inversion methods is given. All joint inversion methods are based on the Aki-Richards approximated linear expressions of PP and PS wave reflection coefficients. Secondly, the algorithms and the inverted results of elastic parameters of the joint inversion methods are discussed. Comparing to inversion methods using PP wave only, the algorithms of the joint inversion methods are more stable by combining the two independent PP and PS wave seismic data. At last, the further development of the joint inversion methods is commented