Estimation of the depth-domain seismic wavelet based on velocity substitution and a generalized seismic wavelet model

Depth-domain seismic wavelet estimation is the essential foundation for depth-imaged data inversion, which is increasingly used for hydrocarbon reservoir characterization in geophysical prospecting. The seismic wavelet in the depth domain stretches with the medium velocity increase and compresses with the medium velocity decrease. The commonly used convolution model cannot be directly used to estimate depth-domain seismic wavelets due to velocity-dependent wavelet variations. We develop a separate parameter estimation method for estimating depth-domain seismic wavelets from poststack depth-domain seismic and well log data. This method is based on the velocity substitution and depth-domain generalized seismic wavelet model defined by the fractional derivative and reference wavenumber. Velocity substitution allows wavelet estimation with the convolution model in the constant-velocity depth domain. The depth-domain generalized seismic wavelet model allows for a simple workflow that estimates the depth-domain wavelet by estimating two wavelet model parameters. Additionally, this simple workflow does not need to perform searches for the optimal regularization parameter and wavelet length, which are time-consuming in least-squares-based methods. The limited numerical search ranges of the two wavelet model parameters can easily be calculated using the constant phase and peak wavenumber of the depth-domain seismic data. Our method is verified using synthetic and real seismic data and further compared with least-squares-based methods. The results indicate that the proposed method is effective and stable even for data with a low S/N.

A Note on the Nonparametric Estimation of the Conditional Mode by Wavelet Methods

The purpose of this note is to introduce and investigate the nonparametric estimation of the conditional mode using wavelet methods. We propose a new linear wavelet estimator for this problem. The estimator is constructed by combining a specific ratio technique and an established wavelet estimation method. We obtain rates of almost sure convergence over compact subsets of Rd. A general estimator beyond the wavelet methodology is also proposed, discussing adaptivity within this statistical framework.