Wavefield downward extrapolation for migration velocity analysis on Marmousi data-set

The authors present a method for estimation of interval velocities using the downward continuation of the wavefield to perform layer-stripping migration velocity analysis. The generalized, phase-shift migration MG(F-K) in wavenumber-frequency domain was used for fulltime downward extrapolation of the wavefield. Such downward depth extrapolation accounts for strong changes of velocity in lateral and vertical directions and helps in correct positioning of the wavefield image in complex structures. Determination of velocity is the recursive process which means that the wavefield on depth level z _n−1 (n = 0, 1, ...) is an input data-set for determination of velocity on level z _n . The velocity ν [x, z _n − z _n−1] can be thus treated as interval velocity in Δz _n = z _n − z _n−1 step. This method was tested on synthetic Marmousi data-set and showed satisfactory results for complex, inhomogeneous media.     

基于一步法波场延拓的正演模拟和逆时偏移成像

通常工业界实现逆时偏移算法时采用有限差分数值方法模拟地震波场,波场模拟常常受稳定性条件限制,且易产生数值频散,成像精度降低.本文引入了一步法波场延拓方法,首先构建声波传播算子,借助Chebyshev多项式和Jacobi-Anger展开式近似传播算子中的e指数项,进而实现波场递推,该方法时间步长的选取不受稳定性条件限制而且不存在空间频散现象.本文将一步法波场延拓方法用于逆时偏移成像的波场模拟,并提出双缓冲区存储策略,在不增加计算量的前提下,大幅降低了逆时偏移方法的波场存储量.波场模拟和逆时偏移成像测试表明,本文提出的一步法波场延拓方法模拟地震波场精度高,消除了频散影响,可在较大时间步长的情况下实现高精度波场模拟;提出的基于一步法波场延拓的逆时偏移方法成像质量好;基于双缓冲区存储策略的逆时偏移成像方法存储成本低.     

Constant velocity migration in the various guises of plane-wave theory

The various analytic schemes for performing a wavefield extrapolation or seismic migration from measurements upon a planar surface within a constant velocity medium are inherently related to each other. All schemes can be derived from a simple plane-wave representation of the recorded wavefield. One scheme that is very easy to conceive is based on the Radon transform. It enables one to perform a wavefield extrapolation or seismic migration by a filtered projection and a back projection of the recorded wavefield. This reveals that the theory of seismic migration as well as the theory of seismic tomography are very closely related to each other.     

ACOUSTICAL IMAGING OF SOURCE RECEIVER COINCIDENT PROFILES*

The first part of this paper examines a special case of acoustical imaging in which the source and the receiver coincide. The benefits of weighting and muting are studied in detail by means of computer modeling. The test model consists of a single planar interface z=z₁, abruptly terminated at x= o. The amplitude and phase responses are computed in the plane z=z₀= o for two separations of neighboring stations, Δx=λ/10 and Δx=λ/2. Six different weighting factors are used in the test. However, in this source-receiver coincident case, three of the weighting factors produce identical responses, so that all six test factors may be represented by only four curves. It is found that when the spatial sampling at the aperture approaches the condition of critical sampling, i.e. Δx=λ/2, only the weighting factor which implicitly takes into account beam steering along the specular reflection path is acceptable. This factor alone keeps the amplitude and the phase curves undistorted until the difference 2 ·ΔR between two neighboring paths reaches approximately λ/2. If we set 2 ·ΔR=λ/2, we may construct a set of curves which we may call quite appropriately muting curves. These curves are physically interpretable only for station separation Δx > λ/4. The muting curves are symmetrical about the line x= 0 and their angular opening depends on spatial separation Δx, depth z, and wavelength λ (which may vary with depth). The second part of this paper suggests how the weighting factor with implicit beam steering can be applied to reconstruction of two and three-dimensional wavefields. Seismic migration of common depth point (CDP) stacked line data is also discussed. This is a hybrid case which presents certain theoretical difficulties. We shall also mention the velocity problem which is inherent to migration of CDP stacked data. The third and final part concerns implementation of the migration of CDP stacked data. When the spatial sampling is between λ/4 and λ/2, the migration process will benefit from beam steering and from muting. The benefits are more subtle when the separation of the traces is less than λ/4. However, in that case the cost of data collection is considerable and often prohibitive. In either case the migration of seismic data can be expedited by use of precalculated tables of migration velocities, ray path distances, and weights (including muting).     

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.     

A COMPARISON BETWEEN KIRCHHOFF AND GRT MIGRATION ON VSP DATA1

A modern approach to migration is to perform wavefield extrapolation, subject to an imaging condition. Correct wavefield extrapolation requires that the boundary conditions at the array of geophones satisfy the wave equation. A sufficient condition is to perform the survey with a single stationary source. Contrary to this condition, many VSPs are conducted in deviated wells, where the source is maintained vertically above the down-hole geophone at each well station. Such a survey fails to provide the boundary conditions theoretically necessary for wave-equation migration. A recently published inversion scheme, referred to as acoustic generalized Radon transform migration (GRT migration), was developed to handle any configuration of sources and geophones, including moving-source deviated-well VSP surveys. GRT migration may be viewed as a weighted version of the generalized Kirchhoff migration, derived in this paper from the exploding-reflector model. When a VSP-survey geometry has been specified, GRT migration can be expressed in terms of array parameters, and compared with the equivalent expression for Kirchhoff (wave-equation) migration. The differences between the two integrals are significant and their effect is demonstrated on VSP data.     

RADON DEPTH MIGRATION1

A depth migration method is presented that uses Radon-transformed common-source seismograms as input. It is shown that the Radon depth migration method can be extended to spatially varying velocity depth models by using asymptotic ray theory (ART) to construct wavefield continuation operators. These operators downward continue an incident receiver-array plane wave and an assumed point-source wavefield into the subsurface. The migration velocity model is constrained to have longer characteristic wavelengths than the dominant source wavelength such that the ART approximations for the continuation operators are valid. This method is used successfully to migrate two synthetic data examples:

• 1 a point diffractor, and
• 2 a dipping layer and syncline interface model.

It is shown that the Radon migration method has a computational advantage over the standard Kirchhoff migration method in that fewer rays are computed in a main memory implementation.     

复杂地表条件下保幅高斯束偏移

高斯束偏移是一种准确、灵活、高效的深度域成像方法,其不但具有接近于波动方程偏移的成像精度,还保留了Kirchhoff偏移灵活、高效的特点以及对复杂地表条件良好的适应性.本文提出了一种适用于复杂地表条件的且具有相对振幅保持特点的高斯束偏移方法.通过考虑地表高程、倾角以及实际的道间距等信息,推导了基于高斯束表示的波场反向延拓公式,并结合反褶积成像条件,得到了复杂地表条件下的共炮域保幅高斯束偏移公式.同原有方法相比,本文方法不但可以直接在起伏的地表面进行局部平面波的分解,具有更高的成像精度,而且可以得到反映地下随角度变化反射系数的成像结果.数值模型的试算验证了上述结论.     

Wavefield interpolation in 3D large‐step Fourier wavefield extrapolation

Extrapolating wavefields and imaging at each depth during three‐dimensional recursive wave‐equation migration is a time‐consuming endeavor. For efficiency, most commercial techniques extrapolate wavefields through thick slabs followed by wavefield interpolation within each thick slab. In this article, we develop this strategy by associating more efficient interpolators with a Fourier‐transform‐related wavefield extrapolation method. First, we formulate a three‐dimensional first‐order separation‐of‐variables screen propagator for large‐step wavefield extrapolation, which allows for wide‐angle propagations in highly contrasting media. This propagator significantly improves the performance of the split‐step Fourier method in dealing with significant lateral heterogeneities at the cost of only one more fast Fourier transform in each thick slab. We then extend the two‐dimensional Kirchhoff and Born–Kirchhoff local wavefield interpolators to three‐dimensional cases for each slab. The three‐dimensional Kirchhoff interpolator is based on the traditional Kirchhoff formula and applies to moderate lateral velocity variations, whereas the three‐dimensional Born–Kirchhoff interpolator is derived from the Lippmann–Schwinger integral equation under the Born approximation and is adapted to highly laterally varying media. Numerical examples on the three‐dimensional salt model of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists/European Association of Geoscientists demonstrate that three‐dimensional first‐order separation‐of‐variables screen propagator Born–Kirchhoff depth migration using thick‐slab wavefield extrapolation plus thin‐slab interpolation tolerates a considerable depth‐step size of up to 72 ms, eventually resulting in an efficiency improvement of nearly 80% without obvious loss of imaging accuracy. Although the proposed three‐dimensional interpolators are presented with one‐way Fourier extrapolation methods, they can be extended for applications to general migration methods.     

Slant-stack velocity analysis for one-dimensional upper mantle structure using short-period data from MAJO

In this paper, regionalP-wave upper mantle structure is investigated using slant-stack velocity analysis of short-period earthquake data recorded at station MAJO (Matsushiro, Japan). Shallow earthquakes from 1980–1986 within 35° of MAJO are used to construct a common receiver gather. Processing of the wavefield data includes focal depth and static time corrections, as well as deterministic deconvolution, in order to equalize pulse shapes and align wavelets on the first arrivals. The processed wavefield data are slant stacked and interatively downward continued to obtain a regional upper mantle velocity model. The model includes a low velocity zone between 107 and 220 km. Beneath the LVZ, the velocity increases smoothly down to the discontinuity at 401 km. In the transition zone, the velocity model again increases linearly, although there is some suggestion of further complexity in the downward continued wavefield data. At the base of the transition zone, a second velocity discontinuity occurs at 660 km, with a linear velocity gradient below. In addition to slant-stack analysis, travel times and synthetic seismograms are computed and compared with the processed and unprocessed wavefield data.     

ELASTIC EXTRAPOLATION OF PRIMARY SEISMIC P- AND S-WAVES1

The elastic Kirchhoff-Helmholtz integral expresses the components of the monochromatic displacement vector at any point A in terms of the displacement field and the stress field at any closed surface surrounding A. By introducing Green's functions for P- and S-waves, the elastic Kirchhoff-Helmholtz integral is modified such that it expresses either the P-wave or the S-wave at A in terms of the elastic wavefield at the closed surface. This modified elastic Kirchhoff-Helmholtz integral is transformed into one-way elastic Rayleigh-type integrals for forward extrapolation of downgoing and upgoing P- and S-waves. We also derive one-way elastic Rayleigh-type integrals for inverse extrapolation of downgoing and upgoing P- and S-waves. The one-way elastic extrapolation operators derived in this paper are the basis for a new prestack migration scheme for elastic data.     

STEEP DIP FINITE-DIFFERENCE MIGRATION*

A method is presented to derive approximate versions of the wave equation which allow finite-difference migration for very steep dips (> 50°). It is shown that for conventional finite-difference schemes, in addition to the dip limitation, the maximum acceptable frequency should be specified. A finite-difference migration technique is proposed in the frequency domain. It is derived that finite-difference wave field extrapolation in the frequency domain consists of a space-variant convolution procedure for each frequency component, the space-variance being defined by the lateral variation in the velocity. Finally it is shown that with finite-difference migration, particle velocity data can be easily obtained from pressure data.     

螺旋坐标下的因子分解合成炮叠前深度偏移

在合成炮叠前深度偏移的基础上，提出了一种高效的合成炮叠前深度偏移方法，即在螺旋坐标下用因子分解进行波场外推的混合法. 用因子分解进行波场外推分为因果过程和反因果过程两个显式求解过程. 这种螺旋坐标下的显式求解过程,提高了波场外推的效率. 根据相位编码原理,对多个射线参数的合成波场进行了编码叠加,基于射线参数实现了MPI并行计算,进一步提高了计算效率. 在推导了有关公式并进行定量分析之后,对Marmousi复杂模型进行了计算,并作了比较,结果表明本文方法具有精度高和速度快的特点,可用于实际资料的计算.     

波动方程深度偏移的频率相关变步长延拓方法

发展了波动方程深度延拓的频率相关变步长深度延拓方法和表驱动的单点波场插值技术.前者通过减少深度延拓的次数减少了波动方程深度偏移的计算量,而后者用很少的计算量实现了等间距、理想采样的深度成像.就同一偏移方法,采用频率相关变步长深度延拓加单点插值,其计算量大约是常规的等间距采样延拓方法的三分之一,但两者的成像效果基本相同.文中以最优分裂Fourier方法为例,用二维理论数据（Marmousi模型）和三维实际地震资料验证了这一方法,但这一方法可适用于各类频率域波动方程深度偏移方法.     

The design of visco‐acoustic weighted L1‐error frequency–space wavefield extrapolators

Seismic imaging is an important step for imaging the subsurface structures of the Earth. One of the attractive domains for seismic imaging is explicit frequency–space (f – x) prestack depth migration. So far, this domain focused on migrating seismic data in acoustic media, but very little work assumed visco‐acoustic media. In reality, seismic exploration data amplitudes suffer from attenuation. To tackle the problem of attenuation, new operators are required, which compensates for it. We propose the weighted L ₁ ‐error minimisation technique to design visco‐acoustic f – x wavefield extrapolators. The L ₁ ‐error wavenumber responses provide superior extrapolator designs as compared with the previously designed equiripple L ₄ ‐norm and L_∞‐norm extrapolation wavenumber responses. To verify the new compensating designs, prestack depth migration is performed on the challenging Marmousi model dataset. A reference migrated section is obtained using non‐compensating f – x extrapolators on an acoustic dataset. Then, both compensating and non‐compensating extrapolators are applied to a visco‐acoustic dataset, and both migrated sections are then compared. The final images show that the proposed weighted L ₁ ‐error method enhances the resolution and results in practically stable images.     

井孔高分辨率Radon变换算子研究

本文针对井间和3D VSP波场的线性特征,研究井孔地震波场线性高分辨率Radon变换算子,用于井孔地震波场分析与纵横波分离.在Radon变换原理分析基础上,采用基于柯西分布的高分辨率线性Radon变换对井孔数据进行Radon变换,其间通过对离散倾角叠加算子求取的研究,及对影响Radon能量收敛的重要参数阻尼因子算法的改进,使数据在Radon域以能量团的形式呈现,得到很好的收敛效果,基本解决了Radon域数据的一定程度的拖尾现象,消除了各能量团之间的平滑效应,采用柯西分布来规则化数据,提高了Radon域的分辨率,Radon域能量也收敛到一个点上,有利于上下行波或纵横波波场分离.最后通过反演结果和模型试算验证了该方法的可行性和稳定性.     

Phase-shift migration with a variable-length spatial transform–an algorithm for moderately varying lateral velocities1

A migration algorithm appropriate for moderately varying lateral velocity changes is developed as an extension of phase-shift migration by using a variable-length spatial transform. This process significantly reduces the number of lateral wave-numbers necessary to downward continue the data, and it replaces the spatial FFT with a simple recursion relationship. For a given frequency and position x, ten lateral wavenumbers are typically sufficient, and the migration algorithm produces accurate images when the velocity structure V (X, z) changes over a few depth intervals of thickness Δz, with lateral velocity gradients up to 1.4 to 1.0.     

Internal multiple attenuation by Kirchhoff extrapolation

Surface‐related multiple elimination is the leading methodology for surface multiple removal. This data‐driven approach can be extended to interbed multiple prediction at the expense of a huge increase of the computational burden. This cost makes model‐driven methods still attractive, especially for the three dimensional case. In this paper we present a methodology that extends Kirchhoff wavefield extrapolation to interbed multiple prediction. In Kirchhoff wavefield extrapolation for surface multiple prediction a single round trip to an interpreted reflector is added to the recorded data. Here we show that interbed multiples generated between two interpreted reflectors can be predicted by applying the Kirchhoff wavefield extrapolation operator twice. In the first extrapolation step Kirchhoff wavefield extrapolation propagates the data backward in time to simulate a round trip to the shallower reflector. In the second extrapolation step Kirchhoff wavefield extrapolation propagates the data forward in time to simulate a round trip to the deeper reflector. In the Kirchhoff extrapolation kernel we use asymptotic Green's functions. The prediction of multiples via Kirchhoff wavefield extrapolation is possibly sped up by computing the required traveltimes via a shifted hyperbola approximation. The effectiveness of the method is demonstrated by results on both synthetic and field data sets.     

基于解析时间波场外推与波场分解的逆时偏移方法研究

双程波方程逆时深度偏移是复杂介质高精度成像的有效技术,但其结果中通常包含成像方法引起的噪音和假象,一般的滤波方法会破坏成像剖面上的振幅,其中的假象也会给后续地质解释带来困扰.将波场进行方向分解然后实现入射波与反射波的相关成像能够有效地消除这类成像噪音,并提高逆时偏移成像质量.波传播方向的分解通常在频率波数域实现,它会占用大量的存储和计算资源,不便于在沿时间外推的逆时深度偏移中应用.本文提出解析时间波场外推方法,可以在时间外推的每个时间片上实现波传播方向的显式分解,逆时深度偏移中利用分解后的炮检波场进行对应的相关运算,实现成像噪音和成像信号的分离.在模型和实际数据上的测试表明,相比于常规互相关逆时偏移成像结果,本文方法能够有效地消除低频成像噪音和特殊地质构造导致的成像假象.     

Water‐bottom multiple attenuation by Kirchhoff extrapolation

Despite being less general than 3D surface‐related multiple elimination (3D‐SRME), multiple prediction based on wavefield extrapolation can still be of interest, because it is less CPU and I/O demanding than 3D‐SRME and moreover it does not require any prior data regularization. Here we propose a fast implementation of water‐bottom multiple prediction that uses the Kirchhoff formulation of wavefield extrapolation. With wavefield extrapolation multiple prediction is usually obtained through the cascade of two extrapolation steps. Actually by applying the Fermat’s principle (i.e., minimum reflection traveltime) we show that the cascade of two operators can be replaced by a single approximated extrapolation step. The approximation holds as long as the water bottom is not too complex. Indeed the proposed approach has proved to work well on synthetic and field data when the water bottom is such that wavefront triplications are negligible, as happens in many practical situations.