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Steered migration in hard rock environments
Author(s) -
Tertyshnikov Konstantin,
Pevzner Roman,
Bóna Andrej,
Alonaizi Faisal,
Gurevich Boris
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
geophysical prospecting
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.735
H-Index - 79
eISSN - 1365-2478
pISSN - 0016-8025
DOI - 10.1111/1365-2478.12218
Subject(s) - geology , environmental geology , regional geology , economic geology , seismology , engineering geology , seismic migration , noise (video) , geophysical imaging , gemology , reflection (computer programming) , passive seismic , fracture (geology) , signal (programming language) , fault (geology) , structural complexity , igneous petrology , tectonics , image (mathematics) , metamorphic petrology , computer science , geotechnical engineering , artificial intelligence , volcanism , programming language
Hard rock seismic exploration normally has to deal with rather complex geological environments. These types of environments are usually characterized by a large number of local heterogeneity (e.g., faults, fracture zones, and steeply dipping interfaces). The seismic data from such environments often have a poor signal‐to‐noise ratio because of the complexity of hard rock geology. To be able to obtain reliable images of subsurface structures in such geological conditions, processing algorithms that are capable of handling seismic data with a low signal‐to‐noise ratio are required for a reflection seismic exploration. In this paper, we describe a modification of the 3D Kirchhoff post‐stack migration algorithm that utilizes coherency attributes obtained by the diffraction imaging algorithm in 3D to steer the main Kirchhoff summation. The application to a 3D synthetic model shows the stability of the presented steered migration to the presence of high level of the random noise. A test on the 3D seismic volume, acquired on a mine site located in Western Australia, reveals the capability of the approach to image steep and sharp objects such as fracture and fault zones and lateral heterogeneity.