High-resolution wave-equation amplitude-variation-with-ray-parameter (AVP) imaging with sparseness constraints

Abstract

We propose a new scheme for high-resolution amplitude-variation-with-ray-parameter (AVP) imaging that uses nonquadratic regularization. We pose migration as an inverse problem and propose a cost function that uses a priori information about common-image gathers (CIGs). In particular, we introduce two regularization constraints: smoothness along the offset-ray-parameter axis and sparseness in depth. The two-step regularization yields high-resolution CIGs with robust estimates of AVP. We use an iterative reweighted least-squares conjugate gradient algorithm to minimize the cost function of the problem. We test the algorithm with synthetic data (a wedge model and the Marmousi data set) and a real data set (Erskine area, Alberta). Tests show our method helps to enhance the vertical resolution of CIGs and improves amplitude accuracy along the ray-parameter direction.