Slowness-driven Gaussian-beam prestack depth migration for low-fold seismic data

Geophysics ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 74 (6) ◽  
pp. WCA35-WCA45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chaoshun Hu ◽  
Paul L. Stoffa

Subsurface images based on low-fold seismic reflection data or data with geometry acquisition limitations, such as obtained from ocean-bottom seismography (OBS), are often corrupted by migration swing artifacts. Incorporating prestack instantaneous slowness information into the imaging condition can significantly reduce these migration swing artifacts and improve image quality, especially for areas with poor illumination. We combine the horizontal surface slowness information of observed seismic data with Gaussian-beam depth migration to implement a new slowness-driven Gaussian-beam prestack depth migration whereby Fresnel weighting is combined naturally with beam summation. The prestack instantaneous slowness information is extracted from the original OBS or shot gathers using local slant stacks and is combined with a local semblance analysis. During migration, we propagate the seismic energy downward, knowing its instantaneous slowness information. At each image location, the beam summation is localized in a resolution-dependent Fresnel zone; the instantaneous slowness information controls the beam summation. Synthetic and real data examples confirm that slowness-driven Gaussian-beam migration can suppress most noise from inadequate stacking and give a clearer migration result.

Geophysics ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 68 (5) ◽  
pp. 1714-1730 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bertrand Iooss ◽  
David Geraets ◽  
Tapan Mukerji ◽  
Yann Samuelides ◽  
Mustafa Touati ◽  
...  

Understanding the internal heterogeneities of reservoirs is one of the key issues in better recovery and efficient reservoir management. Seismic data are widely used to map subsurface heterogeneities. These heterogeneities can include variations in wave velocity and rock density, which can be used to interpret variations in reservoir properties such as porosity, lithofacies, and fluids. This paper describes a statistical tomography method to infer the spatial statistics of subsurface velocity heterogeneities from seismic data. We consider an acoustic wave propagating in a medium represented as a single macromodel superimposed on statistically stationary random velocity perturbations. While the macromodel is retrieved by classical seismic methods, the picked traveltimes and their fluctuations are used to estimate the covariance function of the spatially varying velocity perturbations. We present a formulation based on ray‐theoretical results and describe two algorithms: one using the prestack traveltimes and the other using the stacking velocities. The methods are tested with synthetic seismic reflection data in an idealized medium (with a Gaussian spatial covariance) and with synthetic transmission data in a more geologically realistic medium. Then, the two algorithms are applied on real data. The estimates of the spatial statistics obtained from inverting the traveltime statistics match reasonably well with the true parameters of the heterogeneous media.


Geophysics ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 60 (6) ◽  
pp. 1942-1944 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arthur E. Barnes

Tygel et al. have written an excellent and rigorous discussion of pulse distortion in seismic reflection data caused by prestack depth migration. Such distortion is easily understood by recognizing that it is more or less the same effect as normal moveout (NMO) stretch combined with frequency shifting due to poststack time migration.


Geophysics ◽  
1999 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 222-229 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philippe Thierry ◽  
Gilles Lambaré ◽  
Pascal Podvin ◽  
Mark S. Noble

We present an algorithm based on the ray+Born approximation for 3-D preserved amplitude prestack depth migration (PAPsDM) of seismic reflection data. This ray+Born inversion scheme allows the quantitative recovery of model perturbations. The Green’s functions are estimated by dynamic ray tracing in 3-D heterogeneous smooth velocity fields with a wavefront construction (WFC) method. The PAPsDM algorithm was implemented on a single‐processor Sun Sparc 20 workstation. Special attention was paid to CPU efficiency and memory requirements. We present an application on a 3-D real marine data set (13 Gbytes). About one week of CPU time is needed to obtain a migrated image of 7 × 1 × 1 km.


Geophysics ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. U35-U41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Changkun Jin ◽  
Jianzhong Zhang

Stereotomography is a robust method for building velocity models from seismic reflection data, and it has been applied to offshore seismic data, but there is almost no stereotomographic study with rugged topographic conditions. We study the topographic effects on the slopes of locally coherent events of seismic data and develop an approach to calculate the slopes on an undulant observation surface using the horizontal and vertical components of slowness vectors estimated. Then, we develop an extended stereotomography with undulant observation surface based on the conventional one. Tests on synthetic data validate the extended stereotomography. Application to the field seismic data in a foothill belt in Xinjiang of the West China indicates that the extended stereotomography is an effective tool to build velocity models for prestack depth migration of seismic data acquired on rugged topography.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. T255-T263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanli Liu ◽  
Zhenchun Li ◽  
Guoquan Yang ◽  
Qiang Liu

The quality factor ([Formula: see text]) is an important parameter for measuring the attenuation of seismic waves. Reliable [Formula: see text] estimation and stable inverse [Formula: see text] filtering are expected to improve the resolution of seismic data and deep-layer energy. Many methods of estimating [Formula: see text] are based on an individual wavelet. However, it is difficult to extract the individual wavelet precisely from seismic reflection data. To avoid this problem, we have developed a method of directly estimating [Formula: see text] from reflection data. The core of the methodology is selecting the peak-frequency points to linear fit their logarithmic spectrum and time-frequency product. Then, we calculated [Formula: see text] according to the relationship between [Formula: see text] and the optimized slope. First, to get the peak frequency points at different times, we use the generalized S transform to produce the 2D high-precision time-frequency spectrum. According to the seismic wave attenuation mechanism, the logarithmic spectrum attenuates linearly with the product of frequency and time. Thus, the second step of the method is transforming a 2D spectrum into 1D by variable substitution. In the process of transformation, we only selected the peak frequency points to participate in the fitting process, which can reduce the impact of the interference on the spectrum. Third, we obtain the optimized slope by least-squares fitting. To demonstrate the reliability of our method, we applied it to a constant [Formula: see text] model and the real data of a work area. For the real data, we calculated the [Formula: see text] curve of the seismic trace near a well and we get the high-resolution section by using stable inverse [Formula: see text] filtering. The model and real data indicate that our method is effective and reliable for estimating the [Formula: see text] value.


Geophysics ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
James F. Mitchell ◽  
Richard J. Bolander

Subsurface structure can be mapped using refraction information from marine multichannel seismic data. The method uses velocities and thicknesses of shallow sedimentary rock layers computed from refraction first arrivals recorded along the streamer. A two‐step exploration scheme is described which can be set up on a personal computer and used routinely in any office. It is straightforward and requires only a basic understanding of refraction principles. Two case histories from offshore Peru exploration demonstrate the scheme. The basic scheme is: step (1) shallow sedimentary rock velocities are computed and mapped over an area. Step (2) structure is interpreted from the contoured velocity patterns. Structural highs, for instance, exhibit relatively high velocities, “retained” by buried, compacted, sedimentary rocks that are uplifted to the near‐surface. This method requires that subsurface structure be relatively shallow because the refracted waves probe to depths of one hundred to over one thousand meters, depending upon the seismic energy source, streamer length, and the subsurface velocity distribution. With this one requirement met, we used the refraction method over a wide range of sedimentary rock velocities, water depths, and seismic survey types. The method is particularly valuable because it works well in areas with poor seismic reflection data.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Papia Nandi ◽  
Patrick Fulton ◽  
James Dale

As rising ocean temperatures can destabilize gas hydrate, identifying and characterizing large shallow hydrate bodies is increasingly important in order to understand their hazard potential. In the southwestern Gulf of Mexico, reanalysis of 3D seismic reflection data reveals evidence for the presence of six potentially large gas hydrate bodies located at shallow depths below the seafloor. We originally interpreted these bodies as salt, as they share common visual characteristics on seismic data with shallow allochthonous salt bodies, including high-impedance boundaries and homogenous interiors with very little acoustic reflectivity. However, when seismic images are constructed using acoustic velocities associated with salt, the resulting images were of poor quality containing excessive moveout in common reflection point (CRP) offset image gathers. Further investigation reveals that using lower-valued acoustic velocities results in higher quality images with little or no moveout. We believe that these lower acoustic values are representative of gas hydrate and not of salt. Directly underneath these bodies lies a zone of poor reflectivity, which is both typical and expected under hydrate. Observations of gas in a nearby well, other indicators of hydrate in the vicinity, and regional geologic context, all support the interpretation that these large bodies are composed of hydrate. The total equivalent volume of gas within these bodies is estimated to potentially be as large as 1.5 gigatons or 10.5 TCF, considering uncertainty for estimates of porosity and saturation, comparable to the entire proven natural gas reserves of Trinidad and Tobago in 2019.


2018 ◽  
Vol 123 (12) ◽  
pp. 10,810-10,830
Author(s):  
Michael Dentith ◽  
Huaiyu Yuan ◽  
Ruth Elaine Murdie ◽  
Perla Pina-Varas ◽  
Simon P. Johnson ◽  
...  

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