垂向非均匀介质中转换波转换点计算

转换点位置的计算是转换波资料处理中的一个关键问题. 本文提出了分别基于速度随深度线性变化、速度随垂直走时线性变化、慢度随深度线性变化和慢度随垂直走时线性变化四种等效垂向非均匀介质情况下转换点位置的计算方法. 研究了通过速度拟合、走时近似和相似系数谱三种方式选择合适的等效速度方法. 结合理论模型对非均匀介质转换点计算方法、渐进转换点计算方法、Thomsen近似公式和均匀介质解析计算方法的误差进行了分析,结果表明非均匀介质转换点计算方法能更准确地计算转换点位置.     

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.     

Triplications for the converted wave in transversely isotropic media with a tilted symmetry axis

In seismic data processing, serious problems could be caused by the existence of triplication and need to be treated properly for tomography and other inversion methods. The triplication in transversely isotropic medium with a vertical symmetry axis has been well studied and concluded that the triplicated traveltime only occurs for S wave and there is no triplication for P and converted PS waves since the P wave convexity slowness always compensates the S wave slowness concavity. Compared with the vertical symmetry axis model, the research of the triplication in transversely isotropic medium with a tilted symmetry axis is still keeping blank. In order to analyse the triplication for the converted wave in the tilted symmetry axis model, we examine the traveltime of the triplication from the curvature of averaged P and S wave slowness. Three models are defined and tested in the numerical examples to illustrate the behaviour of the tilted symmetry axis model for the triplicated traveltime with the change of the rotation angle. Since the orientation of an interface is related to the orientation of the symmetry axis, the triplicated traveltime is encountered for the converted wave in the tilted symmetry axis model assuming interfaces to be planar and horizontal. The triplicated region is influenced by the place and level of the concave curvature of the P and S wave slowness.     

Normal moveout velocity for pure‐mode and converted waves in layered orthorhombic medium

We study the azimuthally dependent hyperbolic moveout approximation for small angles (or offsets) for quasi‐compressional, quasi‐shear, and converted waves in one‐dimensional multi‐layer orthorhombic media. The vertical orthorhombic axis is the same for all layers, but the azimuthal orientation of the horizontal orthorhombic axes at each layer may be different. By starting with the known equation for normal moveout velocity with respect to the surface‐offset azimuth and applying our derived relationship between the surface‐offset azimuth and phase‐velocity azimuth, we obtain the normal moveout velocity versus the phase‐velocity azimuth. As the surface offset/azimuth moveout dependence is required for analysing azimuthally dependent moveout parameters directly from time‐domain rich azimuth gathers, our phase angle/azimuth formulas are required for analysing azimuthally dependent residual moveout along the migrated local‐angle‐domain common image gathers. The angle and azimuth parameters of the local‐angle‐domain gathers represent the opening angle between the incidence and reflection slowness vectors and the azimuth of the phase velocity ψ_phs at the image points in the specular direction. Our derivation of the effective velocity parameters for a multi‐layer structure is based on the fact that, for a one‐dimensional model assumption, the horizontal slowness and the azimuth of the phase velocity ψ_phs remain constant along the entire ray (wave) path. We introduce a special set of auxiliary parameters that allow us to establish equivalent effective model parameters in a simple summation manner. We then transform this set of parameters into three widely used effective parameters: fast and slow normal moveout velocities and azimuth of the slow one. For completeness, we show that these three effective normal moveout velocity parameters can be equivalently obtained in both surface‐offset azimuth and phase‐velocity azimuth domains.     

Earthquake location in transversely isotropic media with a tilted symmetry axis

The conventional intersection method for earthquake location in isotropic media is developed in the case of transversely isotropic media with a tilted symmetry axis (TTI media). The hypocenter is determined using its loci, which are calculated through a minimum travel time tree algorithm for ray tracing in TTI media. There are no restrictions on the structural complexity of the model or on the anisotropy strength of the medium. The location method is validated by its application to determine the hypocenter and origin time of an event in a complex TTI structure, in accordance with four hypotheses or study cases: (a) accurate model and arrival times, (b) perturbed model with randomly variable elastic parameter, (c) noisy arrival time data, and (d) incomplete set of observations from the seismic stations. Furthermore, several numerical tests demonstrate that the orientation of the symmetry axis has a significant effect on the hypocenter location when the seismic anisotropy is not very weak. Moreover, if the hypocentral determination is based on an isotropic reference model while the real medium is anisotropic, the resultant location errors can be considerable even though the anisotropy strength does not exceed 6.10%.     

S‐wave kinematics in acoustic transversely isotropic media with a vertical symmetry axis

Acoustic transversely isotropic models are widely used in seismic exploration for P‐wave processing and analysis. In isotropic acoustic media only P‐wave can propagate, while in an acoustic transversely isotropic medium both P and S waves propagate. In this paper, we focus on kinematic properties of S‐wave in acoustic transversely isotropic media. We define new parameters better suited for S‐wave kinematics analysis. We also establish the travel time and relative geometrical spreading equations and analyse their properties. To illustrate the behaviour of the S‐wave in multi‐layered acoustic transversely isotropic media, we define the Dix‐type equations that are different from the ones widely used for the P‐wave propagation.     

多层垂直对称轴横向各向同性介质精确走时计算

给出了计算多层垂直对称轴横向各向同性（VTI）介质精确射线路径和走时的方法,所用的体波相速度公式、群速度公式和Snell定律都是严格的显式解析公式. 任意基本波的射线路径和走时计算问题都可以转化成一个等效的透射问题,再用文中的公式来计算,具体实现方法用一个多次波和一个首波的实例给出. 最后分别用精确公式和Thomsen近似公式计算了相同模型相同基本波的走时曲线. 比较两者计算结果可发现, 近似公式反复使用会使误差积累,同时揭示了近似公式适用范围的局限性,强调了使用近似公式需要注意其适用范围的重要性.      

Exact traveltime computation in multi-layered transversely isotropic media with vertical symmetry axis

An approach to calculate the accurate ray paths and traveltimes in multi-layered VTI media (transversely isotropic media with a vertical symmetry axis) is proposed. The expressions of phase velocity, group velocity and Snell’s law used for computation are all explicit and exact. The calculation of ray paths and traveltimes for a given ele-mentary wave is equivalent to that of a transmission problem which is much easier to be treated with the formulae proposed. In the section of numerical examples, the proce...     

Multi-parameter reflection waveform inversion for acoustic transversely isotropic media with a vertical symmetry axis

Full waveform inversion in transversely isotropic media with a vertical symmetry axis provides an opportunity to better match the data at the near and far offsets. However, multi-parameter full waveform inversion, in general, suffers from serious cycle-skipping and trade-off problems. Reflection waveform inversion can help us recover a background model by projecting the residuals of the reflected wavefield along the reflection wavepath. Thus, we extend reflection waveform inversion to acoustic transversely isotropic media with a vertical symmetry axis utilizing the proper parameterization for reduced parameter trade-off. From a radiation patterns analysis, an acoustic transversely isotropic media with a vertical symmetry axis is better described by a combination of the normal-moveout velocity and the anisotropic parameters η and δ for reflection waveform inversion applications. We design a three-stage inversion strategy to construct the optimal resulting model. In the first stage, we only invert for the background by matching the simulated reflected wavefield from the perturbations of and δ with the observed reflected wavefield. In the second stage, the background and η are optimized simultaneously and the far-offset reflected wavefield mainly contribute to their updates. We perform Born modelling to compute the reflected wavefield for the two stages of reflection waveform inversion. In the third stage, we perform full waveform inversion for the acoustic transversely isotropic media with a vertical symmetry axis to delineate the high-wavenumber structures. For this stage, the medium is described by a combination of the horizontal velocity , η and ε instead of , η and δ. The acoustic multi-parameter full waveform inversion utilizes the diving waves to improve the background as well as utilizes reflection for high-resolution information. Finally, we test our inversion algorithm on the modified Sigsbee 2A model (a salt free part) and a two-dimensional line from a three-dimensional ocean bottom cable dataset. The results demonstrate that the proposed reflection waveform inversion approach can recover the background model for acoustic transversely isotropic media with a vertical symmetry axis starting from an isotropic model. This recovered background model can mitigate the cycle skipping of full waveform inversion and help the inversion recover higher resolution structures.     

Seismic amplitude inversion for the transversely isotropic media with vertical axis of symmetry

Transverse isotropy with a vertical axis of symmetry is a common form of anisotropy in sedimentary basins, and it has a significant influence on the seismic amplitude variation with offset. Although exact solutions and approximations of the PP-wave reflection coefficient for the transversely isotropic media with vertical axis of symmetry have been explicitly studied, it is difficult to apply these equations to amplitude inversion, because more than three parameters need to be estimated, and such an inverse problem is highly ill-posed. In this paper, we propose a seismic amplitude inversion method for the transversely isotropic media with a vertical axis of symmetry based on a modified approximation of the reflection coefficient. This new approximation consists of only three model parameters: attribute A, the impedance (vertical phase velocity multiplied by bulk density); attribute B, shear modulus proportional to an anellipticity parameter (Thomsen's parameter ε−δ); and attribute C, the approximate horizontal P-wave phase velocity, which can be well estimated by using a Bayesian-framework-based inversion method. Using numerical tests we show that the derived approximation has similar accuracy to the existing linear approximation and much higher accuracy than isotropic approximations, especially at large angles of incidence and for strong anisotropy. The new inversion method is validated by using both synthetic data and field seismic data. We show that the inverted attributes are robust for shale-gas reservoir characterization: the shale formation can be discriminated from surrounding formations by using the crossplot of the attributes A and C, and then the gas-bearing shale can be identified through the combination of the attributes A and B. We then propose a rock-physics-based method and a stepwise-inversion-based method to estimate the P-wave anisotropy parameter (Thomsen's parameter ε). The latter is more suitable when subsurface media are strongly heterogeneous. The stepwise inversion produces a stable and accurate Thomsen's parameter ε, which is proved by using both synthetic and field data.     

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.     

Caustics in a periodically layered transversely isotropic medium with vertical symmetry axis

Wave propagation in a finely layered medium is a very important topic in seismic modelling and inversion. Here we analyse non‐vertical wave propagation in a periodically layered transversely isotropic (VTI) medium and show that the evanescent (attenuation) zones in the frequency‐horizontal slowness domain result in caustics in the group velocity domain. These caustics, which may appear for both the quasi‐compressional (qP) and quasi‐shear (qSV) wave surfaces are frequency dependent but display weak dependence at low frequencies. The caustics computed for a specific frequency differ from those observed at the low‐ and high‐frequency limits. We illustrate these caustics with a few numerical examples and snapshots computed for both qP‐ and qSV‐wave types.     

Double parameterized regularization inversion method for migration velocity analysis in transversely isotropic media with a vertical symmetry axis

Simultaneous estimation of velocity gradients and anisotropic parameters from seismic reflection data is one of the main challenges in transversely isotropic media with a vertical symmetry axis migration velocity analysis. In migration velocity analysis, we usually construct the objective function using the l₂ norm along with a linear conjugate gradient scheme to solve the inversion problem. Nevertheless, for seismic data this inversion scheme is not stable and may not converge in finite time. In order to ensure the uniform convergence of parameter inversion and improve the efficiency of migration velocity analysis, this paper develops a double parameterized regularization model and gives the corresponding algorithms. The model is based on the combination of the l₂ norm and the non‐smooth l₁ norm. For solving such an inversion problem, the quasi‐Newton method is utilized to make the iterative process stable, which can ensure the positive definiteness of the Hessian matrix. Numerical simulation indicates that this method allows fast convergence to the true model and simultaneously generates inversion results with a higher accuracy. Therefore, our proposed method is very promising for practical migration velocity analysis in anisotropic media.     

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.     

Scattering pattern analysis and true-amplitude generalized Radon transform migration for acoustic transversely isotropic media with a vertical axis of symmetry

In multi-parameter ray-based anisotropic migration/inversion, it is essential that we have an understanding of the scattering mechanism corresponding to parameter perturbations. Because the complex nonlinearity in the anisotropic inversion problem is intractable, the construction of true-amplitude linearized migration/inversion procedures is needed and important. By using the acoustic medium assumption for transversely isotropic media with a vertical axis of symmetry and representing the anisotropy with P-wave normal moveout velocity, Thomsen parameter δ and anelliptic parameter η, we formalize the linearized inverse scattering problem for three-dimensional pseudo-acoustic equations. Deploying the single-scattering approximation and an elliptically anisotropic background introduces a new linear integral operator that connects the discontinuous perturbation parameters with the multi-shot/multi-offset P-wave scattered data. We further apply the high-frequency asymptotic Green's function and its derivatives to the integral operator, and then the scattering pattern of each perturbation parameter can be explicitly presented. By naturally establishing a connection to generalized Radon transform, the pseudo-inverse of the integral operator can be solved by the generalized Radon transform inversion. In consideration of the structure of this pseudo-inverse operator, the computational implementation is done pointwise by shooting a fan of rays from the target imaging area towards the acquisition system. Results from two-dimensional numerical tests show amplitude-preserving images with high quality.     

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.     

Analysis of the traveltime sensitivity kernels for an acoustic transversely isotropic medium with a vertical axis of symmetry

In anisotropic media, several parameters govern the propagation of the compressional waves. To correctly invert surface recorded seismic data in anisotropic media, a multi‐parameter inversion is required. However, a tradeoff between parameters exists because several models can explain the same dataset. To understand these tradeoffs, diffraction/reflection and transmission‐type sensitivity‐kernels analyses are carried out. Such analyses can help us to choose the appropriate parameterization for inversion. In tomography, the sensitivity kernels represent the effect of a parameter along the wave path between a source and a receiver. At a given illumination angle, similarities between sensitivity kernels highlight the tradeoff between the parameters. To discuss the parameterization choice in the context of finite‐frequency tomography, we compute the sensitivity kernels of the instantaneous traveltimes derived from the seismic data traces. We consider the transmission case with no encounter of an interface between a source and a receiver; with surface seismic data, this corresponds to a diving wave path. We also consider the diffraction/reflection case when the wave path is formed by two parts: one from the source to a sub‐surface point and the other from the sub‐surface point to the receiver. We illustrate the different parameter sensitivities for an acoustic transversely isotropic medium with a vertical axis of symmetry. The sensitivity kernels depend on the parameterization choice. By comparing different parameterizations, we explain why the parameterization with the normal moveout velocity, the anellipitic parameter η, and the δ parameter is attractive when we invert diving and reflected events recorded in an active surface seismic experiment.     

3D P‐wave traveltime computation in transversely isotropic media using layer‐by‐layer wavefront marching

Subsurface rocks (e.g. shale) may induce seismic anisotropy, such as transverse isotropy. Traveltime computation is an essential component of depth imaging and tomography in transversely isotropic media. It is natural to compute the traveltime using the wavefront marching method. However, tracking the 3D wavefront is expensive, especially in anisotropic media. Besides, the wavefront marching method usually computes the traveltime using the eikonal equation. However, the anisotropic eikonal equation is highly non‐linear and it is challenging to solve. To address these issues, we present a layer‐by‐layer wavefront marching method to compute the P‐wave traveltime in 3D transversely isotropic media. To simplify the wavefront tracking, it uses the traveltime of the previous depth as the boundary condition to compute that of the next depth based on the wavefront marching. A strategy of traveltime computation is designed to guarantee the causality of wave propagation. To avoid solving the non‐linear eikonal equation, it updates traveltime along the expanding wavefront by Fermat's principle. To compute the traveltime using Fermat's principle, an approximate group velocity with high accuracy in transversely isotropic media is adopted to describe the ray propagation. Numerical examples on 3D vertical transverse isotropy and tilted transverse isotropy models show that the proposed method computes the traveltime with high accuracy. It can find applications in modelling and depth migration.