scholarly journals True-amplitude versus trace-normalized full waveform inversion

2019 ◽  
Vol 220 (2) ◽  
pp. 1421-1435
Author(s):  
Zhikai Wang ◽  
Satish C Singh ◽  
Mark Noble

SUMMARY Full waveform inversion (FWI) is a powerful method to estimate high-resolution physical parameters of the subsurface by iteratively minimizing the misfit between the observed and synthetic seismic data. Standard FWI algorithms measure seismic misfit between amplitude-preserved seismic data (true-amplitude FWI). However, in order to mitigate the variations in sources and recording systems acquired on complex geological structures and the physics that cannot be modelled using an approximation of the seismic wave equation, the observed and synthetic seismic data are normalized trace-by-trace and then used to perform FWI. Trace-by-trace normalization removes the amplitude effects related to offset variations and only keeps the phase information. Furthermore, trace-by-trace normalization changes the true amplitude difference because of different normalization factors used for the corresponding synthetic and observed traces. In this paper, we study the performance of true-amplitude FWI and trace-normalized-residual-based FWI in the time domain. The misfit function of trace-normalized-residual-based FWI is defined such that the adjoint source used in gradient calculation is the trace-normalized seismic residual. We compare the two inversion schemes with synthetic seismic data simulated on laterally invariant models and the more complex 2-D Marmousi model. In order to simulate realistic scenarios, we perform the elastic FWI ignoring attenuation to noisy seismic data and to the synthetic data modelled using a viscoelastic modelling scheme. Comparisons of seismic data and adjoint sources show that trace-by-trace normalization increases the magnitude of seismic data at far offsets, which are usually more cycle-skipped than those at near offsets. The inverted results on linear-gradient models demonstrate that trace-by-trace normalization increases the non-linearity of FWI, so an initial model with sufficient accuracy is required to guarantee the convergence to the global minimum. The inverted results and the final seismic residuals computed using seismic data without trace-by-trace normalization demonstrate that true-amplitude FWI provides inverted models with higher accuracy than trace-normalized-residual-based FWI, even when the unknown density is updated using density–velocity relationship in inversion or in the presence of noise and complex physics, such as attenuation.

Geosciences ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 45
Author(s):  
Marwan Charara ◽  
Christophe Barnes

Full-waveform inversion for borehole seismic data is an ill-posed problem and constraining the problem is crucial. Constraints can be imposed on the data and model space through covariance matrices. Usually, they are set to a diagonal matrix. For the data space, signal polarization information can be used to evaluate the data uncertainties. The inversion forces the synthetic data to fit the polarization of observed data. A synthetic inversion for a 2D-2C data estimating a 1D elastic model shows a clear improvement, especially at the level of the receivers. For the model space, horizontal and vertical spatial correlations using a Laplace distribution can be used to fill the model space covariance matrix. This approach reduces the degree of freedom of the inverse problem, which can be quantitatively evaluated. Strong horizontal spatial correlation distances favor a tabular geological model whenever it does not contradict the data. The relaxation of the spatial correlation distances from large to small during the iterative inversion process allows the recovery of geological objects of the same size, which regularizes the inverse problem. Synthetic constrained and unconstrained inversions for 2D-2C crosswell data show the clear improvement of the inversion results when constraints are used.


2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 1757-1802
Author(s):  
C. Huang ◽  
L. Dong ◽  
Y. Liu ◽  
B. Chi

Abstract. Low frequency is a key issue to reduce the nonlinearity of elastic full waveform inversion. Hence, the lack of low frequency in recorded seismic data is one of the most challenging problems in elastic full waveform inversion. Theoretical derivations and numerical analysis are presented in this paper to show that envelope operator can retrieve strong low frequency modulation signal demodulated in multicomponent data, no matter what the frequency bands of the data is. With the benefit of such low frequency information, we use elastic envelope of multicomponent data to construct the objective function and present an elastic envelope inversion method to recover the long-wavelength components of the subsurface model, especially for the S-wave velocity model. Numerical tests using synthetic data for the Marmousi-II model prove the effectiveness of the proposed elastic envelope inversion method, especially when low frequency is missing in multicomponent data and when initial model is far from the true model. The elastic envelope can reduce the nonlinearity of inversion and can provide an excellent starting model.


Geophysics ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 73 (5) ◽  
pp. VE135-VE144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Denes Vigh ◽  
E. William Starr

Prestack depth migration has been used for decades to derive velocity distributions in depth. Numerous tools and methodologies have been developed to reach this goal. Exploration in geologically more complex areas exceeds the abilities of existing methods. New data-acquisition and data-processing methods are required to answer these new challenges effectively. The recently introduced wide-azimuth data acquisition method offers better illumination and noise attenuation as well as an opportunity to more accurately determine velocities for imaging. One of the most advanced tools for depth imaging is full-waveform inversion. Prestack seismic full-waveform inversion is very challenging because of the nonlinearity and nonuniqueness of the solution. Combined with multiple iterations of forward modeling and residual wavefield back propagation, the method is computer intensive, especially for 3D projects. We studied a time-domain, plane-wave implementation of 3D waveform inversion. We found that plane-wave gathers are an attractive input to waveform inversion with dramatically reduced computer run times compared to traditional shot-gather approaches. The study was conducted on two synthetic data sets — Marmousi2 and SMAART Pluto 1.5 — and a field data set. The results showed that a velocity field can be reconstructed well using a multiscale time-domain implementation of waveform inversion. Although the time-domain solution does not take advantage of wavenumber redundancy, the method is feasible on current computer architectures for 3D surveys. The inverted velocity volume produces a quality image for exploration geologists by using numerous iterations of waveform inversion.


Sensors ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (9) ◽  
pp. 3114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sixin Liu ◽  
Xintong Liu ◽  
Xu Meng ◽  
Lei Fu ◽  
Qi Lu ◽  
...  

Xiuyan Jade, produced in Xiuyan County, Liaoning Province, China is one of the four famous jade in China. King Jade, which is deemed the largest jade body of the world, was broken out from a hill. The local government planned to build a tourism site based on the jade culture there. The purpose of the investigation was to evaluate the stability of subsurface foundation, and the possible positions of mined-out zones to prevent the further rolling of the jade body. Cross-hole radar tomography is the key technique in the investigation. Conventional travel time and attenuation tomography based on ray tracing theory cannot provide high-resolution images because only a fraction of the measured information is used in the inversion. Full-waveform inversion (FWI) can provide high-resolution permittivity and conductivity images because it utilizes all the information provided by the radar signals. We deduce the gradient expression of the time-domain FWI with respect to the permittivity and conductivity using a method that is different from that of the previous work and realize the FWI algorithm that can simultaneously update the permittivity and conductivity by using the conjugate gradient method. Inverted results from synthetic data show that time-domain FWI can significantly improve the resolution compared with the ray-based tomogram methods. FWI can distinguish targets that are as small as one-half to one-third wavelength and the inverted physical values are closer to the real ones than those provided by the ray tracing method. We use the FWI algorithm to the field data measured at Xiuyan jade mine. Both the inverted permittivity and conductivity can comparably delineate four mined-out zones, which exhibit low-permittivity and low-conductivity characteristics. Furthermore, the locations of the interpreted mined-out zones are in good agreement with the existing mining channels recorded by geological data.


Geophysics ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 81 (2) ◽  
pp. R29-R44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qingchen Zhang ◽  
Hui Zhou ◽  
Qingqing Li ◽  
Hanming Chen ◽  
Jie Wang

Accurate estimation of source wavelet is crucial in a successful full-waveform inversion (FWI); however, it cannot be guaranteed in the case of real seismic data. We have developed time-domain source-independent elastic FWI using the convolution-based objective function that was originally developed for acoustic FWI. We have applied a new time window on the reference traces in the objective function to suppress the noises induced by the convolution and crosscorrelation operations. Also, we have adopted [Formula: see text]-, Huber-, and hybrid-norm objective functions to improve the antinoise ability of our algorithm. We implemented a multiscale inversion strategy to conduct the tests with a quasi-Newton limited-memory Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno (L-BFGS) method to reduce the sensitivity to initial models and to improve the quality of inversion results. Synthetic tests verified that the new added time window can not only improve the inversion results, but also accelerate the convergence rate. Our method can be implemented successfully without a priori knowledge or accurate estimation of the source wavelet and can be more robust to Gaussian and spike noises, even for a Dirac wavelet. Finally, we applied our method to real seismic data. The similarity between the observed and modeled seismic data, the higher resolution of the migration image, and flatter common image gathers corresponding to the inverted models proved the relevance of our algorithm.


Author(s):  
Ehsan Jamali Hondori ◽  
Chen Guo ◽  
Hitoshi Mikada ◽  
Jin-Oh Park

AbstractFull-waveform inversion (FWI) of limited-offset marine seismic data is a challenging task due to the lack of refracted energy and diving waves from the shallow sediments, which are fundamentally required to update the long-wavelength background velocity model in a tomographic fashion. When these events are absent, a reliable initial velocity model is necessary to ensure that the observed and simulated waveforms kinematically fit within an error of less than half a wavelength to protect the FWI iterative local optimization scheme from cycle skipping. We use a migration-based velocity analysis (MVA) method, including a combination of the layer-stripping approach and iterations of Kirchhoff prestack depth migration (KPSDM), to build an accurate initial velocity model for the FWI application on 2D seismic data with a maximum offset of 5.8 km. The data are acquired in the Japan Trench subduction zone, and we focus on the area where the shallow sediments overlying a highly reflective basement on top of the Cretaceous erosional unconformity are severely faulted and deformed. Despite the limited offsets available in the seismic data, our carefully designed workflow for data preconditioning, initial model building, and waveform inversion provides a velocity model that could improve the depth images down to almost 3.5 km. We present several quality control measures to assess the reliability of the resulting FWI model, including ray path illuminations, sensitivity kernels, reverse time migration (RTM) images, and KPSDM common image gathers. A direct comparison between the FWI and MVA velocity profiles reveals a sharp boundary at the Cretaceous basement interface, a feature that could not be observed in the MVA velocity model. The normal faults caused by the basal erosion of the upper plate in the study area reach the seafloor with evident subsidence of the shallow strata, implying that the faults are active.


Entropy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 599
Author(s):  
Danilo Cruz ◽  
João de Araújo ◽  
Carlos da Costa ◽  
Carlos da Silva

Full waveform inversion is an advantageous technique for obtaining high-resolution subsurface information. In the petroleum industry, mainly in reservoir characterisation, it is common to use information from wells as previous information to decrease the ambiguity of the obtained results. For this, we propose adding a relative entropy term to the formalism of the full waveform inversion. In this context, entropy will be just a nomenclature for regularisation and will have the role of helping the converge to the global minimum. The application of entropy in inverse problems usually involves formulating the problem, so that it is possible to use statistical concepts. To avoid this step, we propose a deterministic application to the full waveform inversion. We will discuss some aspects of relative entropy and show three different ways of using them to add prior information through entropy in the inverse problem. We use a dynamic weighting scheme to add prior information through entropy. The idea is that the prior information can help to find the path of the global minimum at the beginning of the inversion process. In all cases, the prior information can be incorporated very quickly into the full waveform inversion and lead the inversion to the desired solution. When we include the logarithmic weighting that constitutes entropy to the inverse problem, we will suppress the low-intensity ripples and sharpen the point events. Thus, the addition of entropy relative to full waveform inversion can provide a result with better resolution. In regions where salt is present in the BP 2004 model, we obtained a significant improvement by adding prior information through the relative entropy for synthetic data. We will show that the prior information added through entropy in full-waveform inversion formalism will prove to be a way to avoid local minimums.


2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 1017-1031 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yong Hu ◽  
Liguo Han ◽  
Rushan Wu ◽  
Yongzhong Xu

Abstract Full Waveform Inversion (FWI) is based on the least squares algorithm to minimize the difference between the synthetic and observed data, which is a promising technique for high-resolution velocity inversion. However, the FWI method is characterized by strong model dependence, because the ultra-low-frequency components in the field seismic data are usually not available. In this work, to reduce the model dependence of the FWI method, we introduce a Weighted Local Correlation-phase based FWI method (WLCFWI), which emphasizes the correlation phase between the synthetic and observed data in the time-frequency domain. The local correlation-phase misfit function combines the advantages of phase and normalized correlation function, and has an enormous potential for reducing the model dependence and improving FWI results. Besides, in the correlation-phase misfit function, the amplitude information is treated as a weighting factor, which emphasizes the phase similarity between synthetic and observed data. Numerical examples and the analysis of the misfit function show that the WLCFWI method has a strong ability to reduce model dependence, even if the seismic data are devoid of low-frequency components and contain strong Gaussian noise.


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