Diffraction imaging by prestack reverse‐time migration in the dip‐angle domain

Prestack image volumes may be decomposed into specular and non‐specular parts by filters defined in the dip‐angle domain. For space‐shift extended image volumes, the dip‐angle decomposition is derived via local Radon transform in depth and midpoint coordinates, followed by an averaging over space‐shifts. We propose to employ prestack space‐shift extended reverse‐time migration and dip‐angle decomposition for imaging small‐scale structural elements, considered as seismic diffractors, in models with arbitrary complexity. A suitable design of a specularity filter in the dip‐angle domain rejects the dominant reflectors and enhances diffractors and other non‐specular image content. The filter exploits a clear discrimination in dip between specular reflections and diffractions. The former are stationary at the specular dip, whereas the latter are non‐stationary without a preferred dip direction. While the filtered image volume features other than the diffractor images (for example, noise and truncation artefacts are also present), synthetic and field data examples suggest that diffractors tend to dominate and are readily recognisable. Averaging over space‐shifts in the filter construction makes the reflectors? rejection robust against migration velocity errors. Another consequence of the space‐shift extension and its angle‐domain transforms is the possibility of exploring the image in a multiple set of common‐image gathers. The filtered diffractions may be analysed simultaneously in space‐shift, scattering‐angle, and dip‐angle image gathers by means of a single migration job. The deliverables of our method obviously enrich the processed material on the interpreter's desk. We expect them to further supplement our understanding of the Earth's interior.     

Poststack diffraction imaging using reverse‐time migration

We propose a method for imaging small‐scale diffraction objects in complex environments in which Kirchhoff‐based approaches may fail. The proposed method is based on a separation between the specular reflection and diffraction components of the total wavefield in the migrated surface angle domain. Reverse‐time migration was utilized to produce the common image gathers. This approach provides stable and robust results in cases of complex velocity models. The separation is based on the fact that, in surface angle common image gathers, reflection events are focused at positions that correspond to the apparent dip angle of the reflectors, whereas diffracted events are distributed over a wide range of angles. The high‐resolution radon‐based procedure is used to efficiently separate the reflection and diffraction wavefields. In this study, we consider poststack diffraction imaging. The advantages of working in the poststack domain are its numerical efficiency and the reduced computational time. The numerical results show that the proposed method is able to image diffraction objects in complex environments. The application of the method to a real seismic dataset illustrates the capability of the approach to extract diffractions.     

Image‐ray Tomography

Seismic tomography is a well‐established approach to invert smooth macro‐velocity models from kinematic parameters, such as traveltimes and their derivatives, which can be directly estimated from data. Tomographic methods differ more with respect to data domains than in the specifications of inverse‐problem solving schemes. Typical examples are stereotomography, which is applied to prestack data and Normal‐Incidence‐Point‐wave tomography, which is applied to common midpoint stacked data. One of the main challenges within the tomographic approach is the reliable estimation of the kinematic attributes from the data that are used in the inversion process. Estimations in the prestack domain (weak and noisy signals), as well as in the post‐stack domain (occurrence of triplications and diffractions leading to numerous conflicting dip situations) may lead to parameter inaccuracies that will adversely impact the resulting velocity models. To overcome the above limitations, a new tomographic procedure applied in the time‐migrated domain is proposed. We call this method Image‐Incident‐Point‐wave tomography. The new scheme can be seen as an alternative to Normal‐Incidence‐Point‐wave tomography. The latter method is based on traveltime attributes associated with normal rays, whereas the Image‐Incidence‐Point‐wave technique is based on the corresponding quantities for the image rays. Compared to Normal‐Incidence‐Point‐wave tomography the proposed method eases the selection of the tomography attributes, which is shown by synthetic and field data examples. Moreover, the method provides a direct way to convert time‐migration velocities into depth‐migration velocities without the need of any Dix‐style inversion.     

The form of the reflection operator and extended image gathers for a dipping plane reflector in two space dimensions

The reflection operator for a simple flat‐lying interface can be thought of as the set of all its plane‐wave reflection coefficients or as the set of virtual surveys with sources and receivers along the interface. When there is dip, however, it is necessary to include the varying effects of propagation between the virtual‐survey level and the interface. Hence, step one in this paper is to derive the reflection operator for a dipping plane interface as observed at a datum level some distance away. The key assumption is that the aperture at the datum level is sufficient to characterize the reflector properties around a particular point. This translates into an assumption that the dip is moderate, though no explicit small‐angle approximation is required. The second step is to find the apparent reflection operator that would relate data that have been extrapolated from the datum towards and possibly beyond the reflector using an assumed migration velocity. This apparent reflection operator is closely related to extended common‐image gathers. The apparent reflection operator may be analysed asymptotically in terms of rays and other signals, shedding light on the structure of extended image gathers. In keeping with the virtual‐survey idea, the results are considered in a subsurface space‐time or slowness‐time domain at various extrapolation levels around the interface. An important distinction is drawn between using subsurface midpoint‐offset coordinates and the wavefield coordinates of the incident and reflected waves. The latter reveal more clearly the effects of dip, because they lead to a more asymmetric apparent reflection operator. Properties such as an up‐dip shift of a traveltime minimum and its associated curvature theoretically provide information about the reflector location and dip and the migration‐velocity error. The space‐time form of the reflection operator can be highly intricate around the offset‐time origin and it was described for a simple flat interface in a background paper. To avoid a layer of mathematics, the reflection‐operator formulas presented here are in the intermediate space‐frequency domain. They are analysed by considering their stationary‐phase and branch‐point high‐frequency contributions. There is no Born‐like assumption of weak reflector contrast and so wide‐angle, total reflection and head‐wave effects are included. Snell’s law is an explicit part of the theory. It is hoped that the work will therefore be a step towards the goal of unifying amplitude‐versus‐offset, imaging and waveform inversion.     

A robust approach to time‐to‐depth conversion and interval velocity estimation from time migration in the presence of lateral velocity variations

The problem of conversion from time‐migration velocity to an interval velocity in depth in the presence of lateral velocity variations can be reduced to solving a system of partial differential equations. In this paper, we formulate the problem as a non‐linear least‐squares optimization for seismic interval velocity and seek its solution iteratively. The input for the inversion is the Dix velocity, which also serves as an initial guess. The inversion gradually updates the interval velocity in order to account for lateral velocity variations that are neglected in the Dix inversion. The algorithm has a moderate cost thanks to regularization that speeds up convergence while ensuring a smooth output. The proposed method should be numerically robust compared to the previous approaches, which amount to extrapolation in depth monotonically. For a successful time‐to‐depth conversion, image‐ray caustics should be either nonexistent or excluded from the computational domain. The resulting velocity can be used in subsequent depth‐imaging model building. Both synthetic and field data examples demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach.     

Eliminating 3D pre‐stack migration artefacts by 6D filtering

State‐of‐the‐art 3D seismic acquisition geometries have poor sampling along at least one dimension. This results in coherent migration noise that always contaminates pre‐stack migrated data, including high‐fold surveys, if prior‐to‐migration interpolation was not applied. We present a method for effective noise suppression in migrated gathers, competing with data interpolation before pre‐stack migration. The proposed technique is based on a dip decomposition of common‐offset volumes and a semblance‐type measure computation via offset for all constant‐dip gathers. Thus the processing engages six dimensions: offset, inline, crossline, depth, inline dip, and crossline dip. To reduce computational costs, we apply a two‐pass (4D in each pass) noise suppression: inline processing and then crossline processing (or vice versa). Synthetic and real‐data examples verify that the technique preserves signal amplitudes, including amplitude‐versus‐offset dependence, and that faults are not smeared.     

Investigating a time‐shift extended imaging condition in a Kirchhoff pre‐stack depth migration algorithm

Extracting true amplitude versus angle common image gathers is one of the key objectives in seismic processing and imaging. This is achievable to different degrees using different migration techniques (e.g., Kirchhoff, wavefield extrapolation, and reverse time migration techniques) and is a common tool in exploration, but the costs can vary depending on the selected migration algorithm and the desired accuracy. Here, we investigate the possibility of combining the local‐shift imaging condition, specifically the time‐shift extended imaging condition, for angle gathers with a Kirchhoff migration. The aims are not to replace the more accurate full‐wavefield migration but to offer a cheaper alternative where ray‐based methods are applicable and to use Kirchhoff time‐lag common image gathers to help bridge the gap between the traditional offset common image gathers and reverse time migration angle gathers; finally, given the higher level of summation inside the extended imaging migration, we wish to understand the impact on the amplitude versus angle response. The implementation of the time‐shift imaging condition along with the computational cost is discussed, and results of four different datasets are presented. The four example datasets, two synthetic, one land acquisition, and a marine dataset, have been migrated using a Kirchhoff offset method, a Kirchhoff time‐shift method, and, for comparison, a reverse time migration algorithm. The results show that the time‐shift imaging condition at zero time lag is equivalent to the full offset stack as expected. The output gathers are cleaner and more consistent in the time‐lag‐derived angle gathers, but the conversion from time lag to angle can be considered a post‐processing step. The main difference arises in the amplitude versus offset/angle distribution where the responses are different and dramatically so for the land data. The results from the synthetics and real data show that a Kirchhoff migration with an extended imaging condition is capable of generating subsurface angle gathers. The same disadvantages with a ray‐based approach will apply using the extended imaging condition relative to a wave equation angle gather solution. Nevertheless, using this approach allows one to explore the relationship between the velocity model and focusing of the reflected energy, to use the Radon transformation to remove noise and multiples, and to generate consistent products from a ray‐based migration and a full‐wave equation migration, which can then be interchanged depending on the process under study.     

Increasing resolution of reverse‐time migration using time‐shift gathers

Reverse‐time migration has become an industry standard for imaging in complex geological areas. We present an approach for increasing its imaging resolution by employing time‐shift gathers. The method consists of two steps: (i) migrating seismic data with the extended imaging condition to get time‐shift gathers and (ii) accumulating the information from time‐shift gathers after they are transformed to zero‐lag time‐shift by a post‐stack depth migration on a finer grid. The final image is generated on a grid, which is denser than that of the original image, thus improving the resolution of the migrated images. Our method is based on the observation that non‐zero‐lag time‐shift images recorded on the regular computing grid contain the information of zero‐lag time‐shift image on a denser grid, and such information can be continued to zero‐lag time‐shift and refocused at the correct locations on the denser grid. The extra computational cost of the proposed method amounts to the computational cost of zero‐offset migration and is almost negligible compared with the cost of pre‐stack shot‐record reverse‐time migration. Numerical tests on synthetic models demonstrate that the method can effectively improve reverse‐time migration resolution. It can also be regarded as an approach to improve the efficiency of reverse‐time migration by performing wavefield extrapolation on a coarse grid and by generating the final image on the desired fine grid.     

Dreamlet source‐receiver survey sinking prestack depth migration

Survey sinking migration downward continues the entire surface observed multi‐shot data to the subsurface step by step recursively. Reflected energy from reflectors at current depth appear at zero time and zero offset in the extrapolated wavefield. The data (seismic records) of t > 0 at this depth are equivalent to the data acquired by a survey system deployed at this depth. This is the reason to name the process ‘survey sinking’. The records of negative time need not to be further propagated since they carry no information to image structures beneath the new survey system. In this paper, we combine survey sinking with dreamlet migration. The dreamlet migration method decomposes the seismic wavefield and one‐way wave propagator by complete time‐space localized bases. The localization on time gives flexibility on time‐varying operations during depth extrapolation. In dreamlet survey sinking migration, it only keeps the data for imaging the structures beneath the sunk survey system and gets rid of the data already used to image structures above it. The deeper the depth is, the shorter is the valid time records of the remaining data and less computation is needed for one depth step continuation. For data decomposition, in addition to time axis, dreamlet survey sinking also decomposes the data for source and receiver gathers, which is a fully localized decomposition of prestack seismic data. A three‐scatter model is first used to demonstrate the computational feature and principle of this method. Tests on the two‐dimensional SEG/EAGE salt model show that with reduced data sets the proposed method can still obtain good imaging quality on complex geology structures and a strong velocity contrast environment.     

Wave‐equation migration velocity analysis with time‐shift imaging

Wave‐equation migration velocity analysis is a technique designed to extract and update velocity information from migrated images. The velocity model is updated through the process of optimizing the coherence of images migrated with the known background velocity model. The capacity for handling multi‐pathing of the technique makes it appropriate in complex subsurface regions characterized by strong velocity variation. Wave‐equation migration velocity analysis operates by establishing a linear relation between a slowness perturbation and a corresponding image perturbation. The linear relationship and the corresponding linearized operator are derived from conventional extrapolation operators and the linearized operator inherits the main properties of frequency‐domain wavefield extrapolation. A key step in the implementation is to design an appropriate procedure for constructing an image perturbation relative to a reference image that represents the difference between the current image and a true, or more correct image of the subsurface geology. The target of the inversion is to minimize such an image perturbation by optimizing the velocity model. Using time‐shift common‐image gathers, one can characterize the imperfections of migrated images by defining the focusing error as the shift of the focus of reflections along the time‐shift axis. The focusing error is then transformed into an image perturbation by focusing analysis under the linear approximation. As the focusing error is caused by the incorrect velocity model, the resulting image perturbation can be considered as a mapping of the velocity model error in the image space. Such an approach for constructing the image perturbation is computationally efficient and simple to implement. The technique also provides a new alternative for using focusing information in wavefield‐based velocity model building. Synthetic examples demonstrate the successful application of our method to a layered model and a subsalt velocity update problem.     

TIME MIGRATION—SOME RAY THEORETICAL ASPECTS*

Using an elementary theory of migration one can consider a reflecting horizon as a continuum of scattering centres for seismic waves. Reflections arising at interfaces can thus be looked upon as the sum of energy scattered by interface points. The energy from one point is distributed among signals upon its reflection time surface. This surface is usually well approximated by a hyperboloid in the vicinity of its apex. Migration aims at focusing the scattered energy of each depth point into an image point upon the reflection time surface. To ensure a complete migration the image must be vertical above the depth point. This is difficult to achieve for subsurface interfaces which fall below laterally in-homogeneous velocity media. Migration is hence frequently performed for these interfaces as well by the Kirchhoff summation method which systematically sums signals into the apex of the approximation hyperboloid even though the Kirchhoff integral is in this case not strictly valid. For a multilayered subsurface isovelocity layer model with interfaces of a generally curved nature this can only provide a complete migration for the uppermost interface. Still there are various advantages gained by having a process which sums signals consistently into the minimum of the reflection time surface. The position of the time surface minimum is the place where a ray from the depth point emerges vertically to the surface. The Kirchhoff migration, if applied to media with laterally inhomogeneous velocity, must necessarily be followed by a further time-to-depth migration if the true depth structure is to be recovered. Primary normal reflections and their respective migrated reflections have a complementary relationship to each other. Normal reflections relate to rays normal to the reflector and migrated reflections relate to rays normal to the free surface. Ray modeling is performed to indicate a new approach for simulating seismic reflections. Commonly occuring situations are investigated from which lessons can be learned which are of immediate value for those concerned with interpreting time migrated reflections. The concept of the ‘image ray’ is introduced.     

Multipathing in three‐parameter common‐image gathers from reverse‐time migration

Reverse‐time migration gives high‐quality, complete images by using full‐wave extrapolations. It is thus not subject to important limitations of other migrations that are based on high‐frequency or one‐way approximations. The cross‐correlation imaging condition in two‐dimensional pre‐stack reverse‐time migration of common‐source data explicitly sums the product of the (forward‐propagating) source and (backward‐propagating) receiver wavefields over all image times. The primary contribution at any image point travels a minimum‐time path that has only one (specular) reflection, and it usually corresponds to a local maximum amplitude. All other contributions at the same image point are various types of multipaths, including prismatic multi‐arrivals, free‐surface and internal multiples, converted waves, and all crosstalk noise, which are imaged at later times, and potentially create migration artefacts. A solution that facilitates inclusion of correctly imaged, non‐primary arrivals and removal of the related artefacts, is to save the depth versus incident angle slice at each image time (rather than automatically summing them). This results in a three‐parameter (incident angle, depth, and image time) common‐image volume that integrates, into a single unified representation, attributes that were previously computed by separate processes. The volume can be post‐processed by selecting any desired combination of primary and/or multipath data before stacking over image time. Separate images (with or without artifacts) and various projections can then be produced without having to remigrate the data, providing an efficient tool for optimization of migration images. A numerical example for a simple model shows how primary and prismatic multipath contributions merge into a single incident angle versus image time trajectory. A second example, using synthetic data from the Sigsbee2 model, shows that the contributions to subsalt images of primary and multipath (in this case, turning wave) reflections are different. The primary reflections contain most of the information in regions away from the salt, but both primary and multipath data contribute in the subsalt region.     

Full‐wavefield migration: using surface and internal multiples in imaging

Multiple scattering is usually ignored in migration algorithms, although it is a genuine part of the physical reflection response. When properly included, multiples can add to the illumination of the subsurface, although their crosstalk effects are removed. Therefore, we introduce full‐wavefield migration. It includes all multiples and transmission effects in deriving an image via an inversion approach. Since it tries to minimize the misfit between modeled and observed data, it may be considered a full waveform inversion process. However, full‐wavefield migration involves a forward modelling process that uses the estimated seismic image (i.e., the reflectivities) to generate the modelled full wavefield response, whereas a smooth migration velocity model can be used to describe the propagation effects. This separation of modelling in terms of scattering and propagation is not easily achievable when finite‐difference or finite‐element modelling is used. By this separation, a more linear inversion problem is obtained. Moreover, during the forward modelling, the wavefields are computed separately in the incident and scattered directions, which allows the implementation of various imaging conditions, such as imaging reflectors from below, and avoids low‐frequency image artefacts, such as typically observed during reverse‐time migration. The full wavefield modelling process also has the flexibility to image directly the total data (i.e., primaries and multiples together) or the primaries and the multiples separately. Based on various numerical data examples for the 2D and 3D cases, the advantages of this methodology are demonstrated.     

Handling dip discrimination phenomenon in common‐reflection‐surface stack via combination of output‐imaging‐scheme and migration/demigration

In the application of a conventional common‐reflection‐surface (CRS) stack, it is well‐known that only one optimum stacking operator is determined for each zero‐offset sample to be simulated. As a result, the conflicting dip situations are not taken into account and only the most prominent event contributes to any a particular stack sample. In this paper, we name this phenomenon caused by conflicting dip problems as ‘dip discrimination phenomenon’. This phenomenon is not welcome because it not only leads to the loss of weak reflections and tips of diffractions in the final zero‐offset‐CRS stacked section but also to a deteriorated quality in subsequent migration. The common‐reflection‐surface stack with the output imaging scheme (CRS‐OIS) is a novel technique to implement a CRS stack based on a unified Kirchhoff imaging approach. As far as dealing with conflicting dip problems is concerned, the CRS‐OIS is a better option than a conventional CRS stack. However, we think the CRS‐OIS can do more in this aspect. In this paper, we propose a workflow to handle the dip discrimination phenomenon based on a cascaded implementation of prestack time migration, CRS‐OIS and prestack time demigration. Firstly, a common offset prestack time migration is implemented. Then, a CRS‐OIS is applied to the time‐migrated common offset gather. Afterwards, a prestack time demigration is performed to reconstruct each unmigrated common offset gather with its reflections being greatly enhanced and diffractions being well preserved. Compared with existing techniques dealing with conflicting dip problems, the technique presented in this paper preserves most of the diffractions and accounts for reflections from all possible dips properly. More importantly, both the post‐stacked data set and prestacked data set can be of much better quality after the implementation of the presented scheme. It serves as a promising alternative to other techniques except that it cannot provide the typical CRS wavefield attributes. The numerical tests on a synthetic Marmousi data set and a real 2D marine data set demonstrated its effectiveness and robustness.     

逆时偏移在声反射成像测井中的应用方法研究

声反射成像测井中常用的基于射线理论的Kirchhoff积分偏移算法和基于单程波理论的F-K偏移算法均可实现井旁缝洞反射体的快速偏移成像,但其仅适用于地层垂向变化较弱的速度场和高陡角裂缝的偏移成像,无法实现低角度反射体的准确偏移归位,产生偏移假象误导测井解释.逆时偏移基于全波动方程,可适应强垂向变化速度场,实现近似水平反射体的偏移成像.本文详细分析了将逆时偏移应用于声反射成像测井时存在的数据准备、时间采样间隔匹配和成像条件改进等若干问题,通过设置多组理论模型来说明算法对井旁不同反射体的识别能力.模拟资料和实际资料处理结果证实,较F-K偏移算法,逆时偏移算法成像精度更高、收敛性更好,可有效实现近似水平构造偏移归位.改进的归一化互相关成像条件可解决深部地层的远井壁成像衰减问题,降低测井解释的多解性.逆时偏移将成为声反射成像测井高精度偏移技术的发展方向.     

Stereotomography assisted by migration of attributes

Depth velocity model building remains a difficult step within the seismic depth imaging sequence. Stereotomography provides an efficient solution to this problem but was limited until now to a picking of seismic data in the prestack time un-migrated domain. We propose here a method for stereotomographic data picking in the depth migrated domain. Picking in the depth migrated domain exhibits the advantage of a better signal-to-noise ratio and of a more regular distribution of picked events in the model, leading to a better constrained tomographic inverse problem. Moreover, any improvement on the velocity model will improve the migrated results, again leading to improved picking. Our strategy for obtaining a stereotomographic dataset from a prestack depth migration is based on migration of attributes (and not on a kinematic demigration approach!). For any locally coherent event in the migrated image, migration of attributes allows one to compute ray parameter attributes corresponding to the specular reflection angle and dip. For application to stereotomography, the necessary attributes are the source/receiver locations, the traveltime and the data slopes. For the data slope, when the migration velocity model is erroneous, some additional corrections have to be applied to the result of migration of the attributes. Applying these corrections, our picking method is theoretically valid whatever the quality of the migration velocity model. We first present the theoretical aspects of the method and then validate it on 2D synthetic and real seismic reflection data sets.     

Parsimonious 3D post-stack Kirchhoff depth migration

Parsimonious post‐stack migration is extended to three dimensions. By tracing single rays back along each incident wave direction (as determined by a local slant stack at the receivers), the ray tracing can be embedded in the migration. This approach significantly reduces the computer time and disk space needed because it is not necessary to build and save image time maps; 3D migration can be performed on a workstation or personal computer rather than using a supercomputer or cluster. The location of a reflector in the output image is defined by tracing a zero‐offset ray to the one‐way traveltime (the image condition); the orientation of the reflector is defined as a surface perpendicular to the raypath. The migration impulse response operator is confined to the first Fresnel zone around the estimated reflection point, which is much smaller than the large isochronic surface in traditional Kirchhoff depth migration. Additional efficiency is obtained by applying an amplitude threshold to reduce the amount of data to be migrated. Tests on synthetic data show that the proposed implementation of parsimonious 3D post‐stack Kirchhoff depth migration is at least two orders of magnitude faster than traditional Kirchhoff migration, at the expense of slightly degraded migration image coherence. The proposed migration is expected to be a useful complement to conventional time migrations for fast initial imaging of subsurface structures and for real‐time imaging of near‐offset sections during data acquisition for quality control.     

Wide‐azimuth angle gathers for anisotropic wave‐equation migration

Extended common‐image‐point gathers (CIP) constructed by wide‐azimuth TI wave‐equation migration contain all the necessary information for angle decomposition as a function of the reflection and azimuth angles at selected locations in the subsurface. The aperture and azimuth angles are derived from the extended images using analytic relations between the space‐ and time‐lag extensions using information which is already available at the time of migration, i.e. the anisotropic model parameters. CIPs are cheap to compute because they can be distributed in the image at the most relevant positions, as indicated by the geologic structure. If the reflector dip is known at the CIP locations, then the computational cost can be reduced by evaluating only two components of the space‐lag vector. The transformation from extended images to angle gathers is a planar Radon transform which depends on the local medium parameters. This transformation allows us to separate all illumination directions for a given experiment, or between different experiments. We do not need to decompose the reconstructed wavefields or to choose the most energetic directions for decomposition. Applications of the method include illumination studies in complex areas where ray‐based methods fail, and assuming that the subsurface illumination is sufficiently dense, the study of amplitude variation with aperture and azimuth angles.     

Stacking angle‐domain common‐image gathers for normalization of illumination

Unequal illumination of the subsurface highly impacts the quality of seismic imaging. Different image points receive different folds of reflection‐angle illumination, which can be caused by irregular acquisition or by wave propagation in complex media. Illumination problems can deteriorate amplitudes in migrated images. To address this problem, we present a method of stacking angle‐domain common‐image gathers, in which we use local similarity with soft thresholding to determine the folds of local illumination. Normalization by local similarity regularizes local illumination of reflection angles for each image point of the subsurface model. This approach compensates for irregular illumination by selective stacking in the image space, regardless of the cause of acquisition or propagation irregularities. Additional migration is not required because the methodology is implemented in the reflection angle domain after migration. We use two synthetic examples to demonstrate that our method can normalize migration amplitudes and effectively suppress migration artefacts.     

Foldback reflectors near methane hydrate bottom‐simulating reflectors: Indicators of gas distribution from 3D seismic images in the eastern Nankai Trough

Understanding of fluid behavior and gas distribution in the shallow subsurface are important considerations in gas hydrate formation and the global carbon cycle. Estimation of gas distribution based on reflection seismic surveys, however, is difficult because the boundary of a gas‐bearing zone is indistinct and not systematically defined. This study reports distinctive features related to gas‐hydrate distribution and possible fluid migration in high‐resolution 3D seismic‐reflection data from sediments of the eastern Nankai Trough. These features, here termed foldback reflectors (FBRs), descend in accordion shaped reflectors near the edges of bottom‐simulating reflectors (BSRs). FBRs generally correspond to lateral boundaries between two seismic facies, a ‘dimmed’ facies with relatively low amplitude and subdued high‐frequency components beneath the BSR and the contrasting facies around the BSR. The dimmed facies corresponds to areas of anomalously low velocity consistent with a small amount of free gas. FBR is mostly developed in well‐stratified formations in uplifted regions. Dip directions of the FBR appear to be restricted by orientation of the host formations. Edges of the FBR often correspond to high‐amplitude layers. Such occurrences of FBR suggest that regional uplift and layer‐parallel fluid migration are related to the formation of FBR as well as BSR.