Multiples waveform inversion

Abstract

To increase the illumination of the subsurface and to eliminate the dependency of FWI on the source wavelet, we propose multiples waveform inversion (MWI) that transforms each hydrophone into a virtual point source with a time history equal to that of the recorded data. These virtual sources are used to numerically generate downgoing wavefields that are correlated with the backprojected surface-related multiples to give the migration image. Since the recorded data are treated as the virtual sources, knowledge of the source wavelet is not required, and the subsurface illumination is greatly enhanced because the entire free surface acts as an extended source compared to the radiation pattern of a traditional point source. Numerical tests on the Marmousi2 model show that the convergence rate and the spatial resolution of MWI is, respectively, faster and more accurate then FWI. The potential pitfall with this method is that the multiples undergo more than one roundtrip to the surface, which increases attenuation and reduces spatial resolution. This can lead to less resolved tomograms compared to conventional FWI. The possible solution is to combine both FWI and MWI in inverting for the subsurface velocity distribution.