Waveform inversion of lateral velocity variation from wavefield source location perturbation

Abstract

It is challenge in waveform inversion to precisely define the deep part of the velocity model compared to the shallow part. The lateral velocity variation, or what referred to as the derivative of velocity with respect to the horizontal distance, with well log data can be used to update the deep part of the velocity model more precisely. We develop a waveform inversion algorithm to obtain the lateral velocity variation by inverting the wavefield variation associated with the lateral shot location perturbation. The gradient of the new waveform inversion algorithm is obtained by the adjoint-state method. Our inversion algorithm focuses on resolving the lateral changes of the velocity model with respect to a fixed reference vertical velocity profile given by a well log. We apply the method on a simple-dome model to highlight the methods potential.