ABSTRACT We apply Gaussian beam summation to the calculation of seismic reflections from complex interfaces, introducing several modifications of the original method. First, we use local geographical coordinates for the representation of paraxial rays in the vicinity of the recording surface, In this way we avoid the timeconsuming evaluation of the ray-centered coordinates of the observation points. Second, we propose a method for selecting the beams that ensures numerical stability of the synthetic seismograms, Third, we introduce a simple source wave packet that simplifies and stabilizes the calculations of inverse Fourier transforms. We compare reflection seismograms computed using the Gaussian beam-summation method with those calculated by finite differences. Two simple models are used. The first is a continuous curved interface separ
