High-resolution Radon preconditioning for full-waveform inversion of land seismic data

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. SR23-SR33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xin Cheng ◽  
Kun Jiao ◽  
Dong Sun ◽  
Zhen Xu ◽  
Denes Vigh ◽  
...  

Over the past decade, acoustic full-waveform inversion (FWI) has become one of the standard methods in the industry to construct high-resolution velocity fields from the seismic data acquired. While most of the successful applications are for marine acquisition data with rich low-frequency diving or postcritical waves at large offsets, the application of acoustic FWI on land data remains a challenging topic. Land acoustic FWI application faces many severe difficulties, such as the presence of strong elastic effects, large near-surface velocity contrast, and heterogeneous, topography variations, etc. In addition, it is well-known that low-frequency transmitted seismic energy is crucial for the success of FWI to overcome sensitivity to starting velocity fields; unfortunately, those are the parts of the data that suffer the most from a low signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) in land acquisition. We have developed an acoustic FWI application on a land data set from North Kuwait, and demonstrated our solutions to mitigate some of the challenges posed by land data. More specifically, we have developed a semblance-based high-resolution Radon (HR-Radon) inversion approach to enhance the S/N of the low-frequency part of the FWI input data and to ultimately improve the convergence of the land FWI workflow. To mitigate the impact of elastic effects, we included only the diving and postcritical early arrivals in the waveform inversion. Our results show that, with the aid of HR-Radon preconditioning and a carefully designed workflow, acoustic FWI has the ability to derive a reliable high-resolution near-surface model that could not be otherwise recovered through traditional tomographic methods.

Geophysics ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-57
Author(s):  
Daniele Colombo ◽  
Ernesto Sandoval ◽  
Diego Rovetta ◽  
Apostolos Kontakis

Land seismic velocity modeling is a difficult task largely related to the description of the near surface complexities. Full waveform inversion is the method of choice for achieving high-resolution velocity mapping but its application to land seismic data faces difficulties related to complex physics, unknown and spatially varying source signatures, and low signal-to-noise ratio in the data. Large parameter variations occur in the near surface at various scales causing severe kinematic and dynamic distortions of the recorded wavefield. Some of the parameters can be incorporated in the inversion model while others, due to sub-resolution dimensions or unmodeled physics, need to be corrected through data preconditioning; a topic not well described for land data full waveform inversion applications. We have developed novel algorithms and workflows for surface-consistent data preconditioning utilizing the transmitted portion of the wavefield, signal-to-noise enhancement by generation of CMP-based virtual super shot gathers, and robust 1.5D Laplace-Fourier full waveform inversion. Our surface-consistent scheme solves residual kinematic corrections and amplitude anomalies via scalar compensation or deconvolution of the near surface response. Signal-to-noise enhancement is obtained through the statistical evaluation of volumetric prestack responses at the CMP position, or virtual super (shot) gathers. These are inverted via a novel 1.5D acoustic Laplace-Fourier full waveform inversion scheme using the Helmholtz wave equation and Hankel domain forward modeling. Inversion is performed with nonlinear conjugate gradients. The method is applied to a complex structure-controlled wadi area exhibiting faults, dissolution, collapse, and subsidence where the high resolution FWI velocity modeling helps clarifying the geological interpretation. The developed algorithms and automated workflows provide an effective solution for massive full waveform inversion of land seismic data that can be embedded in typical near surface velocity analysis procedures.


2018 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 884
Author(s):  
Lianping Zhang ◽  
Haryo Trihutomo ◽  
Yuelian Gong ◽  
Bee Jik Lim ◽  
Alexander Karvelas

The Schlumberger Multiclient Exmouth 3D survey was acquired over the Exmouth sub-basin, North West Shelf Australia and covers 12 600 km2. One of the primary objectives of this survey was to produce a wide coverage of high quality imaging with advanced processing technology within an agreed turnaround time. The complexity of the overburden was one of the imaging challenges that impacted the structuration and image quality at the reservoir level. Unlike traditional full-waveform inversion (FWI) workflow, here, FWI was introduced early in the workflow in parallel with acquisition and preprocessing to produce a reliable near surface velocity model from a smooth starting model. FWI derived an accurate and detailed near surface model, which subsequently benefitted the common image point (CIP) tomography model updates through to the deeper intervals. The objective was to complete the FWI model update for the overburden concurrently with the demultiple stages hence reflection time CIP tomography could start with a reasonably good velocity model upon completion of the demultiple process.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rahul Dixit ◽  
Pavel Vasilyev ◽  
Ivica Mihaljevic ◽  
Michelle Tham ◽  
Denes Vigh ◽  
...  

Abstract Full-waveform inversion (FWI) has become a well-established method for obtaining a detailed earth model suitable for improved imaging, near-surface characterization and pore-pressure prediction. FWI for onshore data has always been challenging and has seen limited application (Vigh et al, 2018). It requires a dedicated data processing approach related to the lower signal-to-noise ratio, accounting for variable topography and complex near-surface related effects. During the past few years, ADNOC has been acquiring and processing one of the world's largest combined 3D onshore and offshore seismic surveys in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. The modern acquisition parameters that were implemented enabled the acquisition of broadband onshore seismic data rich in low frequencies that could benefit the initial stages of the FWI workflow. Sand dunes and sabkha layers at the surface, and high-velocity carbonate and dolomite layers in the subsurface pose a significant challenge for near-surface modeling in the UAE. The purpose of this work is to evaluate FWI application onshore UAE for near-surface characterization. We will compare the FWI results with conventional approaches for the near-surface model building that has been used routinely on land datasets in UAE, such as data-driven image-based statics (DIBS, Zarubov et al, 2019). One of the main challenges is data preconditioning, as onshore seismic data typically exhibits high levels of noise. It is imperative to denoise gathers sufficiently prior to the FWI process. A well sonic velocity function with large smoothing was used to build the starting velocity model for FWI. The process aims to minimize the least-squared difference between predicted and observed seismic responses by means of updating the model on which the prediction is based. As the predicted and seismic responses are functions of model parameters as well as source signature, a good estimate of the source wavelet is important for update and convergence in FWI. During this FWI work, source wavelet inversion was done as a separate step and used in subsequent FWI passes. FWI inversion started with adjustive FWI (Kun et al, 2015) on lower frequencies, moving to higher frequencies where both adjustive and least square objective functions were used. We will further show assessment of the anisotropy, initial conditions, usage of geological constraints, and comparisons to the conventional solutions. A comparison of results shows that FWI has successfully added velocity details to the near-surface model that follow the geological trend and conforms to well information while producing a plausible static solution. We have demonstrated the application of FWI onshore UAE for near-surface modeling. Although turnaround time (TAT) has increased compared to the conventional approach, the learning that was gained during this trial will decrease TAT for the future FWI work.


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.


2019 ◽  
Vol 221 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aayush Garg ◽  
D J Verschuur

SUMMARY Traditionally, reservoir elastic parameters inversion suffers from the overburden multiple scattering and transmission imprint in the local input data used for the target-oriented inversion. In this paper, we present a full-wavefield approach, called reservoir-oriented joint migration inversion (JMI-res), to estimate the high-resolution reservoir elastic parameters from surface seismic data. As a first step in JMI-res, we reconstruct the fully redatumed data (local impulse responses) at a suitable depth above the reservoir from the surface seismic data, while correctly accounting for the overburden interal multiples and transmission losses. Next, we apply a localized elastic full waveform inversion on the estimated impulse responses to get the elastic parameters. We show that JMI-res thus provides much more reliable local target impulse responses, thus yielding high-resolution elastic parameters, compared to a standard redatuming procedure based on time reversal of data. Moreover, by using this kind of approach we avoid the need to apply a full elastic full waveform inversion-type process for the whole subsurface, as within JMI-res elastic full waveform inversion is only restricted to the reservoir target domain.


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