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Transmission + reflection anisotropic wave‐equation traveltime and waveform inversion
Author(s) -
Feng Shihang,
Schuster Gerard T.
Publication year - 2019
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 - 10.1111/1365-2478.12733
Subject(s) - geology , wave equation , inversion (geology) , waveform , isotropy , anisotropy , wavenumber , reflection (computer programming) , wave propagation , optics , geophysics , physics , mathematical analysis , seismology , mathematics , computer science , voltage , tectonics , programming language , quantum mechanics
A transmission + reflection wave‐equation traveltime and waveform inversion method is presented that inverts the seismic data for the anisotropic parameters in a vertical transverse isotropic medium. The simultaneous inversion of anisotropic parameters v p 0and ε is initially performed using transmission wave‐equation traveltime inversion method. Transmission wave‐equation traveltime only provides the low‐intermediate wavenumbers for the shallow part of the anisotropic model; in contrast, reflection wave‐equation traveltime estimates the anisotropic parameters in the deeper section of the model. By incorporating a layer‐stripping method with reflection wave‐equation traveltime, the ambiguity between the background‐velocity model and the depths of reflectors can be greatly mitigated. In the final step, multi‐scale full‐waveform inversion is performed to recover the high‐wavenumber component of the model. We use a synthetic model to illustrate the local minima problem of full‐waveform inversion and how transmission and reflection wave‐equation traveltime can mitigate this problem. We demonstrate the efficacy of our new method using field data from the Gulf of Mexico.