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Suppressing the low-frequency noise in reverse-time migration utilizing the non-reflecting wave equation

LINGLI ZHANG1 ,  WENGUANG SHI2 ,  ZHENGGUO HOU2 ,  YUXIAO REN1 ,  RUIRUI WANG3
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1 Geotechnical and Structural Engineering Research Center, Shandong University, Jinan 250061, P.R. China.,
2 Guangdong Yuehai Pearl River Delta Water Supply Co., Ltd., Shenzhen, Guangdong 518001, P.R. China.,
3 School of Civil Engineering, Shandong Jianzhu University, Jinan 250101, P.R. China.,
JSE 2023, 32(1), 1–20;
Submitted: 9 June 2025 | Revised: 9 June 2025 | Accepted: 9 June 2025 | Published: 9 June 2025
© 2025 by the Authors. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC-by the license) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )
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Abstract

Zhang, L., Shi, W.G., Hou. Z.G., Ren, Y.X. and Wang, R.R., 2023. Suppressing the low-frequency noise in reverse-time migration utilizing the non-reflecting wave equation. Journal of Seismic Exploration. 32: 1-20. As a high-precision geophysical imaging method, reverse-time migration (RTM) is widely used in seismic exploration. However, the imaging quality in RTM is susceptible to low-frequency noise, which is chiefly caused by unwanted cross-correlation of reflections. In order to remove the low-frequency noise, the non-reflecting wave equation can be introduced to RTM. On this basis, we propose an improved RTM method utilizing the non-reflecting wave equation to achieve low-frequency noise suppression in prestack acoustic RTM. Specifically, the non- reflecting wave equation is only used in the process reverse- time wavefield simulation, to take advantage of its ability of weakening reflections. Accordingly, abnormal imaging points attributable to reflections can be reduced. We evaluated the denoising effect through numerical examples including a simple layered model, a concave model, and the complicated Marmousi model. The results show that low-frequency noise can be effectively suppressed by introducing the non-reflecting wave equation into RTM. This improved RTM method can achieve better imaging with less low-frequency noise compared with conventional RTM method. Moreover, the improved RTM method ensures computational efficiency without increasing storage demands.

Keywords
reverse-time migration
low-frequency noise
non-reflecting wave equation
denoising.
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Journal of Seismic Exploration, Electronic ISSN: 0963-0651 Print ISSN: 0963-0651, Published by AccScience Publishing
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