Diffraction traveltime approximation for TI media with an inhomogeneous background
Type
ArticleKAUST Department
Earth Science and Engineering ProgramEnvironmental Science and Engineering Program
KAUST Solar Center (KSC)
Physical Science and Engineering (PSE) Division
Seismic Wave Analysis Group
Date
2013-09Permanent link to this record
http://hdl.handle.net/10754/562953
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Diffractions in seismic data contain valuable information that can help improve our modeling capability for better imaging of the subsurface. They are especially useful for anisotropic media because they inherently possess a wide range of dips necessary to resolve the angular dependence of velocity. We develop a scheme for diffraction traveltime computations based on perturbation of the anellipticity anisotropy parameter for transversely isotropic media with tilted axis of symmetry (TTI). The expansion, therefore, uses an elliptically anisotropic medium with tilt as the background model. This formulation has advantages on two fronts: first, it alleviates the computational complexity associated with solving the TTI eikonal equation, and second, it provides a mechanism to scan for the best-fitting anellipticity parameter η without the need for repetitive modeling of traveltimes, because the traveltime coefficients of the expansion are independent of the perturbed parameter η. The accuracy of such an expansion is further enhanced by the use of Shanks transform. We established the effectiveness of the proposed formulation with tests on a homogeneous TTI model and complex media such as the Marmousi and BP models.Citation
Waheed, U. bin, Alkhalifah, T., & Stovas, A. (2013). Diffraction traveltime approximation for TI media with an inhomogeneous background. GEOPHYSICS, 78(5), WC103–WC111. doi:10.1190/geo2012-0413.1Sponsors
We would like to thank KAUST and ROSE project for financial support. We also extend thanks to BP for releasing the benchmark synthetic model. We acknowledge useful discussions with David Ketcheson on implementing the TTI eikonal solver. We are extremely grateful to Claudia Vanelle, Stig-Kyrre Foss, Zvi Koren, and Sergius Dell for useful reviews that improved the quality of the paper.Publisher
Society of Exploration GeophysicistsJournal
Geophysicsae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.1190/GEO2012-0413.1