Accelerating wavefield extrapolation isochron-ray migration

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.
- Berryhill, J.R., 1979. Wave equation datuming. Geophysics, 44: 1329-1344.
- Hill, N.R., 1990. Gaussian beam migration. Geophysics, 55: 1416-1428.
- Iversen, E., 2004. The isochron ray in seismic modeling and imaging. Geophysics, 69: 1053-1070.
- Liu, J., Gao, F., Zhang, P. and Dirks, V., 2007. 3D beam based prestack redatuming for efficient
- subsalt velocity analysis. Expanded Abstr., 77th Ann. Internat. SEG Mtg., San Antonio:
- 2802-2806.
- Mulder, W.A., 2005. Rigorous redatuming. Geophys. J. Internat., 161: 401-415.
- ACCELERATING WEIM 41
- Silva, E.F.F. and Sava, P., 2008a. Modeling and imaging using orthogonal isochron rays. Submitted
- to Geophys. Prosp.
- Silva, E.F.F. and Sava, P., 2008b. Wave-equation migration using isochron-rays. Extended Abstr.,
- 70th EAGE Conf., Rome.
- Sun, Y., Qin, F., Checkles, S. and Leveille, J., 2000. 3D prestack Kirchhoff beam migration for
- depth imaging. Geophysics, 65: 1592-1603.
- Wu, R., Chen, L. and Wang, Y., 2002. Synthetic beam-sources and plane-sources for prestack beam
- migration. Expanded Abstr., 72nd Ann. Internat. SEG Mtg., Salt Lake City: 1336-1339.