Converted-wave guided imaging condition for elastic reverse time migration with wavefield separation

2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 201-209 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyungwook Choi ◽  
Soon Jee Seol ◽  
Joongmoo Byun
Geophysics ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 82 (2) ◽  
pp. S111-S127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qizhen Du ◽  
ChengFeng Guo ◽  
Qiang Zhao ◽  
Xufei Gong ◽  
Chengxiang Wang ◽  
...  

The scalar images (PP, PS, SP, and SS) of elastic reverse time migration (ERTM) can be generated by applying an imaging condition as crosscorrelation of pure wave modes. In conventional ERTM, Helmholtz decomposition is commonly applied in wavefield separation, which leads to a polarity reversal problem in converted-wave images because of the opposite polarity distributions of the S-wavefields. Polarity reversal of the converted-wave image will cause destructive interference when stacking over multiple shots. Besides, in the 3D case, the curl calculation generates a vector S-wave, which makes it impossible to produce scalar PS, SP, and SS images with the crosscorrelation imaging condition. We evaluate a vector-based ERTM (VB-ERTM) method to address these problems. In VB-ERTM, an amplitude-preserved wavefield separation method based on decoupled elastic wave equation is exploited to obtain the pure wave modes. The output separated wavefields are both vectorial. To obtain the scalar images, the scalar imaging condition in which the scalar product of two vector wavefields with source-normalized illumination is exploited to produce scalar images instead of correlating Cartesian components or magnitude of the vector P- and S-wave modes. Compared with alternative methods for correcting the polarity reversal of PS and SP images, our ERTM solution is more stable and simple. Besides these four scalar images, the VB-ERTM method generates another PP-mode image by using the auxiliary stress wavefields. Several 2D and 3D numerical examples are evaluated to demonstrate the potential of our ERTM method.


Geophysics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 83 (6) ◽  
pp. S489-S503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jidong Yang ◽  
Hejun Zhu ◽  
Wenlong Wang ◽  
Yang Zhao ◽  
Houzhu Zhang

In elastic reverse time migration (RTM), wavefield separation is an important step to remove crosstalk artifacts and improve imaging quality. State-of-the-art techniques for wavefield separation in isotropic elastic media include using the Helmholtz decomposition and introducing an auxiliary wave equation. Although these two approaches produce pure-mode vector wavefields with correct amplitudes, phases, and physical units, their computational costs are still high under current computational capability, especially for 3D large-scale problems. Based on the P- and S-wave dispersion relations, we have developed an efficient wavefield separation strategy for elastic RTM. Instead of solving a vector Poisson’s equation in the Helmholtz decomposition, we modify the phases of source wavelet as well as multicomponent records and scale the amplitudes of extrapolated wavefields with the squares of P- and S-wave velocities. This operation allows us to produce vector P- and S-wavefields with the same phases and amplitudes as the input coupled wavefields while significantly reducing computational costs. With the separated vector wavefields, we implemented a modified dot-product imaging condition for elastic RTM. In comparison with the previously proposed dot-product imaging condition, this modified imaging condition enables us to eliminate the effects of multiplication with a cosine function and hence produces migrated images with accurate amplitudes. Several 2D and 3D numerical examples are used to demonstrate the feasibility and robustness of our method for imaging complex subsurface structures.


Geophysics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. S17-S27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yue Du ◽  
Yunyue Elita Li ◽  
Jizhong Yang ◽  
Arthur Cheng ◽  
Xinding Fang

The source-free converted-wave (SFCW) reverse time migration is an alternative way to image the subsurface when the source information is missing or the overburden velocities are complex. However, it is challenging due to the lack of source-wavefield constraints. We have derived the SFCW imaging condition from the first gradients of waveform matching objective functions using a set of coupled P- and S-potential equations and small-perturbation approximations. We found that the images obtained from this SFCW imaging condition are second-order approximations to the shear-modulus perturbations. The images produced by the proposed imaging condition are free of the polarity reversal effects and have clear physical meanings. We also find that the acoustic wave equations can be used to back propagate the recorded P- and S-potentials, and the resulting images have the same kinematic accuracy and fewer unphysical mode-conversion artifacts than the SFCW images obtained by the elastic wave equations. Using multiple numerical examples, we determine the accuracy of our formulations, analyze the resolution and artifacts on the resulting images, and develop the limitations of the proposed method.


Geophysics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 83 (6) ◽  
pp. S569-S577 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yang Zhao ◽  
Houzhu Zhang ◽  
Jidong Yang ◽  
Tong Fei

Using the two-way elastic-wave equation, elastic reverse time migration (ERTM) is superior to acoustic RTM because ERTM can handle mode conversions and S-wave propagations in complex realistic subsurface. However, ERTM results may not only contain classical backscattering noises, but they may also suffer from false images associated with primary P- and S-wave reflections along their nonphysical paths. These false images are produced by specific wave paths in migration velocity models in the presence of sharp interfaces or strong velocity contrasts. We have addressed these issues explicitly by introducing a primary noise removal strategy into ERTM, in which the up- and downgoing waves are efficiently separated from the pure-mode vector P- and S-wavefields during source- and receiver-side wavefield extrapolation. Specifically, we investigate a new method of vector wavefield decomposition, which allows us to produce the same phases and amplitudes for the separated P- and S-wavefields as those of the input elastic wavefields. A complex function involved with the Hilbert transform is used in up- and downgoing wavefield decomposition. Our approach is cost effective and avoids the large storage of wavefield snapshots that is required by the conventional wavefield separation technique. A modified dot-product imaging condition is proposed to produce multicomponent PP-, PS-, SP-, and SS-images. We apply our imaging condition to two synthetic models, and we demonstrate the improvement on the image quality of ERTM.


Geophysics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 84 (2) ◽  
pp. S95-S111 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wei Zhang ◽  
Ying Shi

Elastic reverse time migration (RTM) has the ability to retrieve accurately migrated images of complex subsurface structures by imaging the multicomponent seismic data. However, the imaging condition applied in elastic RTM significantly influences the quality of the migrated images. We evaluated three kinds of imaging conditions in elastic RTM. The first kind of imaging condition involves the crosscorrelation between the Cartesian components of the particle-velocity wavefields to yield migrated images of subsurface structures. An alternative crosscorrelation imaging condition between the separated pure wave modes obtained by a Helmholtz-like decomposition method could produce reflectivity images with explicit physical meaning and fewer crosstalk artifacts. A drawback of this approach, though, was that the polarity reversal of the separated S-wave could cause destructive interference in the converted-wave image after stacking over multiple shots. Unlike the conventional decomposition method, the elastic wavefields can also be decomposed in the vector domain using the decoupled elastic wave equation, which preserves the amplitude and phase information of the original elastic wavefields. We have developed an inner-product imaging condition to match the vector-separated P- and S-wave modes to obtain scalar reflectivity images of the subsurface. Moreover, an auxiliary P-wave stress image can supplement the elastic imaging. Using synthetic examples with a layered model, the Marmousi 2 model, and a fault model, we determined that the inner-product imaging condition has prominent advantages over the other two imaging conditions and generates images with preserved amplitude and phase attributes.


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