Joint Multiscale Direct Envelope Inversion of Phase and Amplitude in the Time–Frequency Domain

Abstract

Time–frequency analysis can reveal local variations and allow for separation of phase and amplitude information of nonstationary seismic waveforms. Seismic signals are used since long as a robust tool for inversion of underground structures, as has been the practice in geophysical exploration. However, the mixing of phase and amplitude in seismic data increases the nonlinearity of seismic inversion. The authors first use Gabor transform to separate the phase and amplitude information of envelope data, and then introduce an adaptive factor into the misfit function to redistribute the weight of phase and amplitude information for direct envelope inversion (DEI) in the time–frequency domain. By adopting this procedure, greater flexibility can be achieved in operating the local phase of envelope and waveform spectra to enhance stability of multiscale phase inversion. For DEI, the direct envelope Frechet derivative is used, and thus, no weak scattering assumption is imposed on the joint multiscale DEI of phase and amplitude (PADEI). Compared with the DEI method, the PADEI can better recover the deeper parts of salt-bottom and subsalt structures by boosting the signal energy and weakening the nonlinearity of the waveform inversion.