Anisotropic reverse-time migration for tilted TI media

Seismic anisotropy in dipping shales results in imaging and positioning problems for underlying structures. We develop an anisotropic reverse‐time depth migration approach for P‐wave and SV‐wave seismic data in transversely isotropic (TI) media with a tilted axis of symmetry normal to bedding. Based on an accurate phase velocity formula and dispersion relationships for weak anisotropy, we derive the wave equation for P‐wave and SV‐wave propagation in tilted transversely isotropic (TTI) media. The accuracy of the P‐wave equation and the SV‐wave equation is analyzed and compared with other acoustic wave equations for TTI media. Using this analysis and the pseudo‐spectral method, we apply reverse‐time migration to numerical and physical‐model data. According to the comparison between the isotropic and anisotropic migration results, the anisotropic reverse‐time depth migration offers significant improvements in positioning and reflector continuity over those obtained using isotropic algorithms.     

Pure acoustic wave propagation in transversely isotropic media by the pseudospectral method

Seismic wave propagation in transversely isotropic (TI) media is commonly described by a set of coupled partial differential equations, derived from the acoustic approximation. These equations produce pure P‐wave responses in elliptically anisotropic media but generate undesired shear‐wave components for more general TI anisotropy. Furthermore, these equations suffer from instabilities when the anisotropy parameter ε is less than δ. One solution to both problems is to use pure acoustic anisotropic wave equations, which can produce pure P‐waves without any shear‐wave contaminations in both elliptical and anelliptical TI media. In this paper, we propose a new pure acoustic transversely isotropic wave equation, which can be conveniently solved using the pseudospectral method. Like most other pure acoustic anisotropic wave equations, our equation involves complicated pseudo‐differential operators in space which are difficult to handle using the finite difference method. The advantage of our equation is that all of its model parameters are separable from the spatial differential and pseudo‐differential operators; therefore, the pseudospectral method can be directly applied. We use phase velocity analysis to show that our equation, expressed in a summation form, can be properly truncated to achieve the desired accuracy according to anisotropy strength. This flexibility allows us to save computational time by choosing the right number of summation terms for a given model. We use numerical examples to demonstrate that this new pure acoustic wave equation can produce highly accurate results, completely free from shear‐wave artefacts. This equation can be straightforwardly generalized to tilted TI media.     

The kinematics of S waves in acoustic orthorhombic media

Orthorhombic models are often used in the seismic industry nowadays to describe azimuthal and polar anisotropy and reasonably realistic in capturing the features of the earth interior. It is challenging to handle so many model parameters in the seismic data processing. In order to reduce the number of the parameters for P wave, the acoustic orthorhombic medium is proposed by setting all on-axis S wave velocities to zero. However, due to the coupled behaviour for P and S waves in the orthorhombic model, the ‘S wave artefacts’ are still remained in the acoustic orthorhombic model, which kinematics needs to be defined and analysed. In this paper, we analyse the behaviour of S wave in acoustic orthorhombic media. By analysis of the slowness surface in acoustic orthorhombic media, we define the S waves (or S wave artefacts) that are more complicated in shape comparing to the one propagating in an acoustic transversely isotropic medium with a vertical symmetry axis. The kinematic properties of these waves are defined and analysed in both phase and group domain. The caustics, amplitude and the multi-layered case for S wave in acoustic orthorhombic model are also discussed. It is shown that there are two waves propagating in this acoustic orthorhombic medium. One of these waves is similar to the one propagating in acoustic vertical symmetry axis media, whereas another one has a very complicated shape consisting of two crossing surfaces.     

S-wave in 2D acoustic transversely isotropic media with a tilted symmetry axis

In an acoustic transversely isotropic medium, there are two waves that propagate. One is the P-wave and another one is the S-wave (also known as S-wave artefact). This paper is devoted to analyse the S-wave in two-dimensional acoustic transversely isotropic media with a tilted symmetry axis. We derive the S-wave slowness surface and traveltime function in a homogeneous acoustic transversely isotropic medium with a tilted symmetry axis. The S-wave traveltime approximations in acoustic transversely isotropic media with a tilted symmetry axis can be mapped from the counterparts for acoustic transversely isotropic media with a vertical symmetry axis. We consider a layered two-dimensional acoustic transversely isotropic medium with a tilted symmetry axis to analyse the S-wave moveout. We also illustrate the behaviour of the moveout for reflected S-wave and converted waves.     

Elastic wave mode separation for tilted transverse isotropy media

Seismic waves propagate through the earth as a superposition of different wave modes. Seismic imaging in areas characterized by complex geology requires techniques based on accurate reconstruction of the seismic wavefields. A crucial component of the methods in this category, collectively known as wave‐equation migration, is the imaging condition that extracts information about the discontinuities of physical properties from the reconstructed wavefields at every location in space. Conventional acoustic migration techniques image a scalar wavefield representing the P‐wave mode, in contrast to elastic migration techniques, which image a vector wavefield representing both the P‐ and S‐waves. For elastic imaging, it is desirable that the reconstructed vector fields are decomposed into pure wave modes, such that the imaging condition produces interpretable images, characterizing, for example, PP or PS reflectivity. In anisotropic media, wave mode separation can be achieved by projection of the reconstructed vector fields on the polarization vectors characterizing various wave modes. For heterogeneous media, because polarization directions change with position, wave mode separation needs to be implemented using space‐domain filters. For transversely isotropic media with a tilted symmetry axis, the polarization vectors depend on the elastic material parameters, including the tilt angles. Using these parameters, we separate the wave modes by constructing nine filters corresponding to the nine Cartesian components of the three polarization directions at every grid point. Since the S polarization vectors in transverse isotropic media are not defined in the singular directions, e.g., along the symmetry axes, we construct these vectors by exploiting the orthogonality between the SV and SH polarization vectors, as well as their orthogonality with the P polarization vector. This procedure allows one to separate all three modes, with better preserved P‐wave amplitudes than S‐wave amplitudes. Realistic synthetic examples show that this wave mode separation is effective for both 2D and 3D models with strong heterogeneity and anisotropy.     

Calculating complex‐valued P‐wave first‐arrival traveltimes in attenuative vertical transversely isotropic media with an irregular surface

The complex‐valued first‐arrival traveltime can be used to describe the properties of both velocity and attenuation as seismic waves propagate in attenuative elastic media. The real part of the complex‐valued traveltime corresponds to phase arrival and the imaginary part is associated with the amplitude decay due to energy absorption. The eikonal equation for attenuative vertical transversely isotropic media discretized with rectangular grids has been proven effective and precise to calculate the complex‐valued traveltime, but less accurate and efficient for irregular models. By using the perturbation method, the complex‐valued eikonal equation can be decomposed into two real‐valued equations, namely the zeroth‐ and first‐order traveltime governing equations. Here, we first present the topography‐dependent zeroth‐ and first‐order governing equations for attenuative VTI media, which are obtained by using the coordinate transformation from the Cartesian coordinates to the curvilinear coordinates. Then, we apply the Lax–Friedrichs sweeping method for solving the topography‐dependent traveltime governing equations in order to approximate the viscosity solutions, namely the real and imaginary parts of the complex‐valued traveltime. Several numerical tests demonstrate that the proposed scheme is efficient and accurate in calculating the complex‐valued P‐wave first‐arrival traveltime in attenuative VTI media with an irregular surface.     

An efficient wave extrapolation method for anisotropic media with tilt

Wavefield extrapolation operators for elliptically anisotropic media offer significant cost reduction compared with that for the transversely isotropic case, particularly when the axis of symmetry exhibits tilt (from the vertical). However, elliptical anisotropy does not provide accurate wavefield representation or imaging for transversely isotropic media. Therefore, we propose effective elliptically anisotropic models that correctly capture the kinematic behaviour of wavefields for transversely isotropic media. Specifically, we compute source‐dependent effective velocities for the elliptic medium using kinematic high‐frequency representation of the transversely isotropic wavefield. The effective model allows us to use cheaper elliptic wave extrapolation operators. Despite the fact that the effective models are obtained by matching kinematics using high‐frequency asymptotic, the resulting wavefield contains most of the critical wavefield components, including frequency dependency and caustics, if present, with reasonable accuracy. The methodology developed here offers a much better cost versus accuracy trade‐off for wavefield computations in transversely isotropic media, particularly for media of low to moderate complexity. In addition, the wavefield solution is free from shear‐wave artefacts as opposed to the conventional finite‐difference‐based transversely isotropic wave extrapolation scheme. We demonstrate these assertions through numerical tests on synthetic tilted transversely isotropic models.     

横向各向同性介质拟声波方程及其在逆时偏移中的应用

地下岩石的速度各向异性影响地震波的传播与成像.横向各向同性(TI)介质为最普遍的等效各向异性模型.引入TI介质拟声波方程可以避免复杂的弹性波方程求解以及各向异性介质波场分离,以满足对纵波成像的实际需要.本文从垂直横向各向同性(VTI)介质弹性波方程出发,推导出正应力表达的拟声波方程以及相应的纵波分量的表达式,进而分析从频散关系得到的拟声波方程的物理意义,而后将拟声波方程扩展到更一般的倾斜横向各向同性(TTI)介质中.波前快照与群速度平面的对比验证了拟声波方程可以很好地近似描述qP波的运动学特征.在此基础上,将拟声波方程应用在逆时偏移中并与其特例声波近似方程进行对比,讨论了计算效率、稳定性等实际问题.数值试验表明VTI介质情况下采用声波近似方程可以提高计算效率,而TTI介质qP-qSV波方程则在效率相当的情况下可以保证稳定性.SEG/HESS模型和逆冲模型逆时偏移试验验证了本文TI介质拟声波方程的实用性.     

Research on propagation properties of elastic waves in two-phase anisotropic media

IntroductionItiswellknownthatanisotropylieswidelyintheundergroundmedia.Anisotropicmediawhicharemetintheseismicengineeringandseismicexplorationofenergyaremainlycausedbytheperiodicthinlayers(PTL)andextensivedilatancyanisotropy(EDA).Insuchmedia,anisotropyleadstomorecomplicatepropagationofseismicwave,thesignificantfeatureinanisotropicmediaisvelocityanisotropy.Infact,undergroundstrataareverycomplicated,whichareusuallycomposedofsolidframeandfluid(suchasoil,gasesorwater)inpores.Inordertostudyseism…     

Modeling and RTM for arbitrary-order pure acoustic wave equation in VTI media using normalized pseudo-analytical method

The conventional pseudo-acoustic wave equations(PWEs) in vertical transversely isotropic(VTI)media may generate SV-wave artifacts and propagation instabilities when anisotropy parameters cannot satisfy the pseudo-acoustic assumption. One solution to these issues is to use pure acoustic anisotropic wave equations, which can produce stable and pure P-wave responses without any SVwave pollutions. The commonly used pure acoustic wave equations(PAWEs) in VTI media are mainly derived from the decoupled P-SV dispersion relation based on first-order Taylor-series expansion(TE), thus they will suffer from accuracy loss in strongly anisotropic media. In this paper, we adopt arbitrary-order TE to expand the square root term in Alkhalifah's accurate acoustic VTI dispersion relation and solve the corresponding PAWE using the normalized pseudoanalytical method(NPAM) based on optimized pseudodifferential operator. Our analysis of phase velocity errors indicates that the accuracy of our new expression is perfectly acceptable for majority anisotropy parameters. The effectiveness of our proposed scheme also can be demonstrated by several numerical examples and reverse-time migration(RTM) result.     

Generalized non‐hyperbolic approximation for qP‐wave relative geometrical spreading in a layered transversely isotropic medium with a vertical symmetry axis

Compensation for geometrical spreading along the ray‐path is important in amplitude variation with offset analysis especially for not strongly attenuative media since it contributes to the seismic amplitude preservation. The P‐wave geometrical spreading factor is described by a non‐hyperbolic moveout approximation using the traveltime parameters that can be estimated from the velocity analysis. We extend the P‐wave relative geometrical spreading approximation from the rational form to the generalized non‐hyperbolic form in a transversely isotropic medium with a vertical symmetry axis. The acoustic approximation is used to reduce the number of parameters. The proposed generalized non‐hyperbolic approximation is developed with parameters defined by two rays: vertical and a reference rays. For numerical examples, we consider two choices for parameter selection by using two specific orientations for reference ray. We observe from the numerical tests that the proposed generalized non‐hyperbolic approximation gives more accurate results in both homogeneous and multi‐layered models than the rational counterpart.     

The offset‐midpoint travel‐time pyramid for P‐wave in 2D transversely isotropic media with a tilted symmetry axis

For pre‐stack phase‐shift migration in homogeneous isotropic media, the offset‐midpoint travel time is represented by the double‐square‐root equation. The travel time as a function of offset and midpoint resembles the shape of Cheops’ pyramid. This is also valid for transversely isotropic media with a vertical symmetry axis. In this study, we extend the offset‐midpoint travel‐time pyramid to the case of 2D transversely isotropic media with a tilted symmetry axis. The P‐wave analytical travel‐time pyramid is derived under the assumption of weak anelliptical property of the tilted transverse isotropy media. The travel‐time equation for the dip‐constrained transversely isotropic model is obtained from the depth‐domain travel‐time pyramid. The potential applications of the derived offset‐midpoint travel‐time equation include pre‐stack Kirchhoff migration, anisotropic parameter estimation, and travel‐time calculation in transversely isotropic media with a tilted symmetry axis.     

Simulation of improved pure P-wave equation in transversely isotropic media with a horizontal symmetry axis

Characterizing the expressions of seismic waves in elastic anisotropic media depends on multiparameters. To reduce the complexity, decomposing the P-mode wave from elastic seismic data is an effective way to describe the considerably accurate kinematics with fewer parameters. The acoustic approximation for transversely isotropic media is widely used to obtain P-mode wave by setting the axial S-wave phase velocity to zero. However, the separated pure P-wave of this approach is coupled with undesired S-wave in anisotropic media called S-wave artefacts. To eliminate the S-wave artefacts in acoustic waves for anisotropic media, we set the vertical S-wave phase velocity as a function related to propagation directions. Then, we derive a pure P-wave equation in transversely isotropic media with a horizontal symmetry axis by introducing the expression of vertical S-wave phase velocity. The differential form of new expression for pure P-wave is reduced to second-order by inserting the expression of S-wave phase velocity as an auxiliary operator. The results of numerical simulation examples by finite difference illustrate the stability and accuracy of the derived pure P-wave equation.     

Elastic wave modelling method based on the displacement–velocity fields: an improving nearly analytic discrete approximation

In this paper, we present an improvement to our previously published nearly analytic discrete method (NADM) to solve acoustic and elastic wave equations. We compare the numerical errors of the improved NADM with the original NADM and also the fourth-order Lax–Wendroff correction and present examples of three-component wave fields in 2D transversely isotropic media with strong velocity contrasts. Comparing with the original NADM, we find that the improved method requires significantly less storage space and can increase the time accuracy from second order of the original NADM to fourth order, while the space accuracy remains the same as that of the original one. Theoretical analyses and numerical results suggest that our improved NADM is suitable for large-scale numerical modelling as it can effectively suppress numerical dispersion and source-generated noises caused by discretising wave equations when too-coarse grids are used.     

A hybrid absorbing boundary condition for elastic staggered‐grid modelling

We recently proposed an efficient hybrid scheme to absorb boundary reflections for acoustic wave modelling that could attain nearly perfect absorptions. This scheme uses weighted averaging of wavefields in a transition area, between the inner area and the model boundaries. In this paper we report on the extension of this scheme to 2D elastic wave modelling with displacement‐stress formulations on staggered grids using explicit finite‐difference, pseudo‐implicit finite‐difference and pseudo‐spectral methods. Numerical modelling results of elastic wave equations with hybrid absorbing boundary conditions show great improvement for modelling stability and significant absorption for boundary reflections, compared with the conventional Higdon absorbing boundary conditions, demonstrating the effectiveness of this scheme for elastic wave modelling. The modelling results also show that the hybrid scheme works well in 2D rotated staggered‐grid modelling for isotropic medium, 2D staggered‐grid modelling for vertically transversely isotropic medium and 2D rotated staggered‐grid modelling for tilted transversely isotropic medium.     

Time evolution of the first‐order linear acoustic/elastic wave equation using Lie product formula and Taylor expansion

We propose a new numerical solution to the first‐order linear acoustic/elastic wave equation. This numerical solution is based on the analytic solution of the linear acoustic/elastic wave equation and uses the Lie product formula, where the time evolution operator of the analytic solution is written as a product of exponential matrices where each exponential matrix term is then approximated by Taylor series expansion. Initially, we check the proposed approach numerically and then demonstrate that it is more accurate to apply a Taylor expansion for the exponential function identity rather than the exponential function itself. The numerical solution formulated employs a recursive procedure and also incorporates the split perfectly matched layer boundary condition. Thus, our scheme can be used to extrapolate wavefields in a stable manner with even larger time‐steps than traditional finite‐difference schemes. This new numerical solution is examined through the comparison of the solution of full acoustic wave equation using the Chebyshev expansion approach for the matrix exponential term. Moreover, to demonstrate the efficiency and applicability of our proposed solution, seismic modelling results of three geological models are presented and the processing time for each model is compared with the computing time taking by the Chebyshev expansion method. We also present the result of seismic modelling using the scheme based in Lie product formula and Taylor series expansion for the first‐order linear elastic wave equation in vertical transversely isotropic and tilted transversely isotropic media as well. Finally, a post‐stack migration results are also shown using the proposed method.     

Weak‐anisotropy approximation for P‐wave reflection coefficient at the boundary between two tilted transversely isotropic media

Existing and commonly used in industry nowadays, closed‐form approximations for a P‐wave reflection coefficient in transversely isotropic media are restricted to cases of a vertical and a horizontal transverse isotropy. However, field observations confirm the widespread presence of rock beds and fracture sets tilted with respect to a reflection boundary. These situations can be described by means of the transverse isotropy with an arbitrary orientation of the symmetry axis, known as tilted transversely isotropic media. In order to study the influence of the anisotropy parameters and the orientation of the symmetry axis on P‐wave reflection amplitudes, a linearised 3D P‐wave reflection coefficient at a planar weak‐contrast interface separating two weakly anisotropic tilted tranversely isotropic half‐spaces is derived. The approximation is a function of the incidence phase angle, the anisotropy parameters, and symmetry axes tilt and azimuth angles in both media above and below the interface. The expression takes the form of the well‐known amplitude‐versus‐offset “Shuey‐type” equation and confirms that the influence of the tilt and the azimuth of the symmetry axis on the P‐wave reflection coefficient even for a weakly anisotropic medium is strong and cannot be neglected. There are no assumptions made on the symmetry‐axis orientation angles in both half‐spaces above and below the interface. The proposed approximation can be used for inversion for the model parameters, including the orientation of the symmetry axes. Obtained amplitude‐versus‐offset attributes converge to well‐known approximations for vertical and horizontal transverse isotropic media derived by Rüger in corresponding limits. Comparison with numerical solution demonstrates good accuracy.     

Acoustic VTI modeling and pre-stack reverse-time migration based on the time–space domain staggered-grid finite-difference method

Reverse-time migration (RTM) is based on seismic numerical modeling algorithms, and the accuracy and efficiency of RTM strongly depend on the algorithm used for numerical solution of wave equations. Finite-difference (FD) methods have been widely used to solve the wave equation in seismic numerical modeling and RTM. In this paper, we derive a series of time–space domain staggered-grid FD coefficients for acoustic vertical transversely isotropic (VTI) equations, and adopt these difference coefficients to solve the equations, then analyze the numerical dispersion and stability, and compare the time–space domain staggered-grid FD method with the conventional method. The numerical analysis results demonstrate that the time–space domain staggered-grid FD method has greater accuracy and better stability than the conventional method under the same discretizations. Moreover, we implement the pre-stack acoustic VTI RTM by the conventional and time–space domain high-order staggered-grid FD methods, respectively. The migration results reveal that the time–space domain staggered-grid FD method can provide clearer and more accurate image with little influence on computational efficiency, and the new FD method can adopt a larger time step to reduce the computation time and preserve the imaging accuracy as well in RTM. Meanwhile, when considering the anisotropy in RTM for the VTI model, the imaging quality of the acoustic VTI RTM is better than that of the acoustic isotropic RTM.