Kirchhoff PSDM angle-gather generation based on the traveltime gradient

Abstract

Angle-domain common-image gathers (ADCIGs) are the basic data in migration velocity analysis (MVA) and amplitude variation with angle (AVA) analysis. We propose a common-angle gather-generating scheme using Kirchhoff PSDM based on the traveltime gradient field. The scheme includes three major operations: (1) to calculate the traveltime field of the source and the receiver based on the dynamic programming approach; (2) to obtain the reflection angle according to the traveltime gradient field in the image space; and (3) to generate the ADCIGs during the migration process. Because of the computation approach, the method for generating ADCIGs is superior to conventional ray-based methods. We use the proposed ADCIGs generation method in 3D large-scale seismic data. The key points of the method are the following. (1) We use common-shot datasets for migration, (2) we load traveltimes based on the shot aperture, and (3) we use the MPI and OpenMp memory sharing to decrease the amount of input and output (I/O). Numerical examples using synthetic data suggest that the ADCIGs improve the quality of the velocity and the effectiveness of the 3D angle-gather generation scheme.