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A review of seismic acoustic imaging by reverse‐time migration
Author(s) -
McMechan George A.
Publication year - 1989
Publication title -
international journal of imaging systems and technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.359
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1098-1098
pISSN - 0899-9457
DOI - 10.1002/ima.1850010104
Subject(s) - seismic migration , extrapolation , acoustic wave equation , diffraction , scalar (mathematics) , wave equation , acoustics , seismic wave , inverse problem , geology , mathematical analysis , acoustic wave , computer science , physics , seismology , mathematics , geometry , optics
Seismic migration is the process by which an acoustic seismic wavefield, containing scattered/diffracted waves recorded as a function of time, is converted into a focussed image of the corresponding spatial distribution of scatters/diffractors. One method of implementing this is by reverse‐time extrapolation of the recorded wavefield using the data as boundary values in a finite‐difference solution of the scalar wave equation, plus application of an excitation‐time imaging condition. Conceptually, and numerically, this approach is precisely the inverse of the corresponding forward problem of simulation of the response of a given model to an acoustic source.