Amplitude Preserving Kirchhoff Migration: A Traveltime Based Strategy

Amplitude versus offset information is a key feature to seismic reservoir characterization. Therefore amplitude preserving migration was developed to obtain this information from seismic reflection data. For complex 3-D media, however, this process is computationally expensive. In this paper we present an efficient traveltime based strategy for amplitude preserving migration of the Kirchhoff type. Its foundations are the generation of traveltime tables using a wavefront-oriented ray-tracing technique, and a generalized moveout relation for 3-D heterogeneous media. All required quantities for the amplitude preserving migration are computed from coarsely gridded traveltime tables. The migration includes the interpolation from the coarsely gridded input traveltimes onto the fine migration grid, the computation of amplitude preserving weight functions, and, optionally, the evaluation of an optimized migration aperture. Since ray tracing is employed for the traveltime computation the input velocity model needs to be smooth, i.e. velocity variations of spatial dimensions below the wavelength of the considered reflection signals are removed. Numerical examples on simple generic models validate the technique and an application to the Marmousi model demonstrates its potential to complex media. The major advantage of the traveltime based strategy consists of its computational efficiency by maintaining sufficient accuracy. Considerable savings in storage space (10⁵ and more for 3-D data with respect to no interpolation at all) can be achieved. The computational time for the stack can be substantially reduced (up to 90% in 3-D) with the optimized migration aperture since only those traces are stacked which really contribute to the image point under consideration.