Estimation of Relative Acoustic Impedance Perturbation from Reverse Time Migration Using a Modified Inverse Scattering Imaging Condition

Abstract

Reverse Time Migration (RTM) is a preferred depth migration method for imaging complex structures. It solves the complete wave equation and can model all types of complex wave propagation with no dip limitation. Reverse time migration using the inverse scattering imaging condition produces structural images with an amplitude approximate to the reflectivity, which is a composite effect of the impedance and velocity changes in the acoustic media with variable velocity and density. In this study, we present a modified inverse scattering imaging condition to separate the effect of the impedance and velocity perturbations from the reflectivity. The proposed imaging condition is designed to predict the relative impedance perturbation by selecting near-angle reflections during common-shot RTM. We validate our approach on synthetic models and show that the proposed method can estimate reliable impedance perturbation.