Acoustic modeling and migration of stacked cross‐hole data

Geophysics ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 492-500 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xianhuai Zhu ◽  
George A. McMechan

Prestack computations for cross‐hole data are relatively expensive, as they are for prestack surface survey data. It is therefore of interest to develop methodologies for modeling and processing stacked cross‐hole data. In this context, stacking is over sources, not midpoints. Modeling with a line source produces data that are equivalent (by Huygen’s principle) to those obtained by stacking over a line of point sources. Reverse‐time finite‐difference migration may be applied to the resulting stacked section by generalizing the excitation‐ time imaging condition for a point source to a line source. Illustrations include successful applications to both synthetic data and scale‐model data.

Geophysics ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 77 (5) ◽  
pp. S105-S115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rui Yan ◽  
Xiao-Bi Xie

An angle-domain imaging condition is recommended for multicomponent elastic reverse time migration. The local slant stack method is used to separate source and receiver waves into P- and S-waves and simultaneously decompose them into local plane waves along different propagation directions. We calculated the angle-domain partial images by crosscorrelating every possible combination of the incident and scattered plane P- and S-waves and then organized them into P-P and P-S local image matrices. Local image matrix preserves all the angle information related to the seismic events. Thus, by working in the image matrix, it is convenient to perform different angle-domain operations (e.g., filtering artifacts, correcting polarity, or conducting illumination and acquisition aperture compensations). Because local image matrix is localized in space, these operations can be designed to be highly flexible, e.g., target-oriented, dip-angle-dependent or reflection-angle-dependent. After performing angle-domain operations, we can stack the partial images in the local image matrix to generate the depth image, or partially sum them up to produce different angle-domain common image gathers, which can be used for amplitude versus angle and migration velocity analysis. We tested several numerical examples to demonstrate the applications of this angle-domain image condition.


2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Guillermo Paniagua Castrillón ◽  
Olga Lucia Quintero Montoya ◽  
Daniel Sierra-Sosa

ABSTRACT. Reverse time migration (RTM) solves the acoustic or elastic wave equation by means of the extrapolation from source and receiver wavefield in time. A migrated image is obtained by applying a criteria known as imaging condition. The cross-correlation between source and receiver wavefields is the commonly used imaging condition. However, this imaging condition produces spatial low-frequency noise, called artifacts, due to the unwanted correlation of the diving, head and backscattered waves. Several techniques have been proposed to reduce the artifacts occurrence. Derivative operators as Laplacian are the most frequently used. In this work, we propose a technique based on a spiral phase filter ranging from 0 to 2π, and a toroidal amplitude bandpass filter, known as Laguerre-Gauss transform. Through numerical experiments we present the application of this particular filter on three synthetic data sets. In addition, we present a comparative spectral study of images obtained by the zero-lag cross-correlation imaging condition, the Laplacian filtering and the Laguerre-Gauss filtering, showing their frequency features. We also present evidences not only with simulated noisy velocity fields but also by comparison with the model velocity field gradients that this method improves the RTM images by reducing the artifacts and notably enhance the reflective events. Keywords: Laguerre-Gauss transform, zero-lag cross-correlation, seismic migration, imaging condition. RESUMO. A migração reversa no tempo (RTM) resolve a equação de onda acústica ou elástica por meio da extrapolação a partir do campo de onda da fonte e do receptor no tempo. Uma imagem migrada é obtida aplicando um critério conhecido como condição de imagem. A correlação cruzada entre campos de onda de fonte e receptor é a condição de imagem comumente usada. No entanto, esta condição de imagem produz ruído espacial de baixa frequência, chamados artefatos, devido à correlação indesejada das ondas de mergulho, cabeça e retrodifusão. Várias técnicas têm sido propostas para reduzir a ocorrência de artefatos. Operadores derivados como Laplaciano são os mais utilizados. Neste trabalho, propomos uma técnica baseada em um filtro de fase espiral que varia de 0 a 2π, e um filtro passabanda de amplitude toroidal, conhecido como transformada de Laguerre-Gauss. Através de experimentos numéricos, apresentamos a aplicação deste filtro particular em três conjuntos de dados sintéticos. Além disso, apresentamos um estudo comparativo espectral de imagens obtidas pela condição de imagem de correlação cruzada atraso zero, a filtragem de Laplaciano e a filtragem Laguerre-Gauss, mostrando suas características de frequência. Apresentamos evidências não somente com campos simulados de velocidade ruidosa, mas também por comparação com os gradientes de campo de velocidade do modelo que este método melhora as imagens RTM, reduzindo os artefatos e aumentando notavelmente os eventos reflexivos. Palavras-chave: Transformação de Laguerre-Gauss, correlação cruzada atraso zero, migração sísmica, condição de imagem.


Geophysics ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wen‐Fong Chang ◽  
George A. McMechan

To apply reverse‐time migration to prestack, finite‐offset data from variable‐velocity media, the standard (time zero) imaging condition must be generalized because each point in the image space has a different image time (or times). This generalization is the excitation‐time imaging condition, in which each point is imaged at the one‐way traveltime from the source to that point. Reverse‐time migration with the excitation‐time imaging condition consists of three elements: (1) computation of the imaging condition; (2) extrapolation of the recorder wave field; and (3) application of the imaging condition. Computation of the imaging condition for each point in the image is done by ray tracing from the source point; this is equivalent to extrapolation of the source wave field through the medium. Extrapolation of the recorded wave field is done by an acoustic finite‐difference algorithm. Imaging is performed at each step of the finite‐difference extrapolation by extracting, from the propagating wave field, the amplitude at each mesh point that is imaged at that time and adding these into the image space at the same spatial locations. The locus of all points imaged at one time step is a wavefront [a constant time (or phase) trajectory]. This prestack migration algorithm is very general. The excitation‐time imaging condition is applicable to all source‐receiver geometries and variable‐velocity media and reduces exactly to the usual time‐zero imaging condition when used with zero‐offset surface data. The algorithm is illustrated by application to both synthetic and real VSP data. The most interesting and potentially useful result in the processing of the synthetic data is imaging of the horizontal fluid interfaces within a reservoir even when the surrounding reservoir boundaries are not well imaged.


2013 ◽  
Vol 868 ◽  
pp. 11-14
Author(s):  
Jia Jia Yang ◽  
Bing Shou He ◽  
Jian Zhong Zhang

Based on the elastic wave equation, high-order finite-difference schemes for reverse-time extrapolation in the space of staggered grid and the perfectly matched layer (PML) absorbing boundary condition for the equation are derived. Prestack reverse-time depth migration (RTM) of elastic wave equation using the excitation time imaging condition and normalized cross-correlation imaging condition is carried out. Numerical experiments show that reverse-time migration is not limited for the angle of incidence and dramatic changes in lateral velocity. The reverse-time migration results of normalized cross-correlation imaging condition give the better effect than that of excitation time imaging condition.


Geophysics ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 56 (3) ◽  
pp. 378-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. Loewenthal ◽  
Liang‐zie Hu

This note addresses two methods of computing the imaging condition for prestack migration of common‐shot seismic data; our work is based on the ideas from reverse‐time migration for both poststack (Loewenthal and Mufti, 1983; McMechan, 1983) and prestack data (Chang and McMechan, 1986). In reverse‐time migration of poststack data, the whole stacked section is backward‐extrapolated in time, with half of the medium velocity to time zero. All exploding reflectors are imaged at once at time zero. The time zero is referred to as the imaging condition. In prestack migration, the imaging condition is more involved. Each spatial grid point (treated as a point diffractor) has a different excitation time, which is equal to the one‐way traveltime from the source to that grid point. Each point diffractor is imaged separately at its excitation (the “imaging time”).


Geophysics ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 75 (2) ◽  
pp. S61-S72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kun Xu ◽  
Bing Zhou ◽  
George A. McMechan

We implement prestack reverse time migration (RTM) using frequency-domain extrapolation. We assume the observed data are the scattered field from the seismic experiment; then we time reverse them and derive the corresponding multipoint virtual sources to place along the receiver line rather than treat them as boundary conditions, which are common in time-domain reverse time migration (TRTM). Because the number of virtual sources is equal to the number of independent true sources in prestack frequency-domain reverse-time migration (FRTM), wavefield extrapolation is efficient in the frequency domain using a direct lower/upper (LU) triangular solver for 2D solutions and is still feasible using a parallel iterative or hybrid direct/iterative solver for 3D solutions. Each frequency implicitly contains information for all times, so we can implement the excitation-time and crosscorrelation imaging conditions straightforwardly without disk storage or input/output (I/O). Comparing costs, prestack shot-record FRTM is competitive with prestack shot-record TRTM. In our tests, prestack acoustic-wave FRTM accurately recovers the correct images of subsurface reflectors using 2D synthetic data.


Geophysics ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 76 (5) ◽  
pp. WB169-WB174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuo Ji ◽  
Tony Huang ◽  
Kang Fu ◽  
Zhengxue Li

For deep-water Gulf of Mexico, accurate salt geometry is critical to subsalt imaging. This requires the definition of both external and internal salt geometries. In recent years, external salt geometry (i.e., boundaries between allochthonous salt and background sediment) has improved a great deal due to advances in acquisition, velocity model building, and migration algorithms. But when it comes to defining internal salt geometry (i.e., intrasalt inclusions or dirty salt), no efficient method has yet been developed. In common industry practices, intrasalt inclusions (and thus their velocity anomalies) are generally ignored during the model building stages. However, as external salt geometries reach higher levels of accuracy, it becomes more important to consider the once-ignored effects of dirty salt. We have developed a reflectivity-based approach for dirty salt velocity inversion. This method takes true-amplitude reverse time migration stack volumes as input, then estimates the dirty salt velocity based on reflectivity under a 1D assumption. Results from a 2D synthetic data set and a real 3D Wide Azimuth data set demonstrated that the reflectivity inversion scheme significantly improves the subsalt image for certain areas. In general, we believe that this method produces a better salt model than the traditional clean salt velocity approach.


Geophysics ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. S1-S9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yibo Wang ◽  
Xu Chang ◽  
Hao Hu

Prestack reverse time migration (RTM) is usually regarded as an accurate imaging tool and has been widely used in exploration. Conventional RTM only uses primaries and treats free-surface related multiples as noise; however, free-surface related multiples can sometimes provide extra illumination of the subsurface, and this information could be used in migration procedures. There are many migration methods using free-surface related multiples, but most approaches need to predict multiples, which is time consuming and prone to error. We discovered a new RTM approach that uses the primaries and the free-surface related multiples simultaneously. Compared with migration methods that only use free-surface related multiples, the proposed approach can provide comparable migration results and does not need multiple predictions. In our approach, the source function in conventional RTM was replaced with recorded field data including primaries and free-surface related multiples, together with a synthetic wavelet; the back-propagated primaries in the conventional RTM were replaced with complete recorded field data. The imaging condition of the proposed approach was the same as the crosscorrelation imaging condition of conventional RTM. A three-layer velocity model with scatterers and the Sigsbee 2B synthetic data set were used for numerical experiments. The numerical results showed that the proposed approach can cover a wider range of the subsurface and provide better illumination compared with conventional RTM. The proposed approach was easy to implement and avoided tedious multiple prediction; it might be significant for general complex subsurface imaging.


Geophysics ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 71 (6) ◽  
pp. S209-S217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Sava ◽  
Sergey Fomel

Seismic imaging based on single-scattering approximation is in the analysis of the match between the source and receiver wavefields at every image location. Wavefields at depth are functions of space and time and are reconstructed from surface data either by integral methods (Kirchhoff migration) or by differential methods (reverse-time or wavefield extrapolation migration). Different methods can be used to analyze wavefield matching, of which crosscorrelation is a popular option. Implementation of a simple imaging condition requires time crosscorrelation of source and receiver wavefields, followed by extraction of the zero time lag. A generalized imaging condition operates by crosscorrelation in both space and time, followed by image extraction at zero time lag. Images at different spatial crosscorrelation lags are indicators of imaging accuracy and are also used for image-angle decomposition. In this paper, we introduce an alternative prestack imaging condition in which we preserve multiple lags of the time crosscorrelation. Prestack images are described as functions of time shifts as opposed to space shifts between source and receiver wavefields. This imaging condition is applicable to migration by Kirchhoff, wavefield extrapolation, or reverse-time techniques. The transformation allows construction of common-image gathers presented as functions of either time shift or reflection angle at every location in space. Inaccurate migration velocity is revealed by angle-domain common-image gathers with nonflat events. Computational experiments using a synthetic data set from a complex salt model demonstrate the main features of the method.


Geophysics ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 53 (8) ◽  
pp. 1015-1023 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liang‐Zie Hu ◽  
George A. McMechan ◽  
Jerry M. Harris

Subsurface imaging with common‐source cross‐hole data can be achieved using prestack reverse‐time migration. The algorithm consists of extrapolation of the recorded wave field, application of the excitation‐time imaging condition, and postprocessing of the resulting image with a low‐pass wavenumber filter. The wavenumber filter removes the artifact associated with the direct arrival; this artifact is not separable from the scattered data before migration because, in the cross‐hole geometry, they significantly overlap in time, space, and wavenumber. Migration of synthetic data produces the best possible results, but images produced by migration of scale‐model data are not greatly inferior. Apparently, acceptable images can be obtained from a surprisingly few sources, if these sources are located sufficiently far apart to give independent information and the recording aperture is sufficiently wide.


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