ARTICLE

Accelerating wavefield extrapolation isochron-ray migration

EDUARDO FILPO FERREIRA DA SILVA1 PAUL SAVA2
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1 Petrobras, Av. Republica do Chile 65, Rio de Janeiro - RJ 20031-912, Brazil.,
2 Center for Wave Phenomena, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401-1887, U.S.A.,
JSE 2009, 18(1), 21–41;
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/ )
Abstract

Silva, E.F.F. and Sava, P., 2009. Accelerating wavefield extrapolation isochron-ray migration. Journal of Seismic Exploration, 18: 21-41. Wavefield extrapolation isochron-ray migration (WEIM) is a wave-equation depth migration method for common-offset sections. The method uses the concepts of isochron-rays and equivalent-velocity media to extend the application of the exploding-reflector model to finite-offset imaging. WEIM is implemented as a trace-by-trace algorithm in three steps: 1) equivalent-velocity computation, 2) data-conditioning for zero-offset migration, and 3) wavefield-extrapolation migration. WEIM is attractive for migration velocity analysis (MVA) because it permits the migration of common-offset sections using standard zero-offset wave-equation algorithms, which, in turn, is favorable for development of algorithms for parallel processing. The problem, however, is that WEIM is computationally expensive. The objective here is to present strategies to improve the computational performance of WEIM, perhaps making the method feasible for MVA. The reduction in computation of WEIM is achieved by redatuming and migration of beams rather than single traces, and by reducing the migration aperture. The procedures of beam formation and redatuming differ from the conventional processes described in the literature and are simultaneously applied in the data-conditioning step. The use of beams and redatuming improves the computational performance of WEIM particularly for larger offsets. In a successful application of these strategies to a field-data example, the effective cost reduction obtained is about seven times.

Keywords
depth migration
isochron ray
isochron surface
equivalent velocity
exploding reflector model
wave equation
wavefield extrapolation
beam migration
redatuming
commom offset
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Journal of Seismic Exploration, Electronic ISSN: 0963-0651 Print ISSN: 0963-0651, Published by AccScience Publishing