1. n. [Geophysics]

In multichannel seismic acquisition, the point on the surface halfway between the source and receiver that is shared by numerous source-receiver pairs. Such redundancy among source-receiver pairs enhances the quality of seismic data when the data are stacked. The common midpoint is vertically above the common depth point, or common reflection point. Common midpoint is not the same as common depth point, but the terms are often incorrectly used as synonyms.

Alternate Form: CMP

See related terms: bins,  brute stack,  channel,  common midpoint method,  fold,  gather,  reflector,  stack,  velocity analysis