Q-Compensated Pre-stack Reverse Time Migration in Viscoelastic Media with an Irregular Free Surface

Abstract

Pre-stack reverse time migration (RTM) is a powerful tool that provides better imaging of complex geological structures than traditional migration methods. An irregular free surface has significant impacts on the characteristics of seismic wave propagation and seismic imaging in mountain or basin areas. In addition, viscoelastic media produce a better representation of the earth than acoustic or elastic media. A main feature of RTM in viscoelastic media is that it can consider compensation for P- and S-wave attenuation effects. In this study, we develop an approach for Q-compensated pre-stack RTM in 2D viscoelastic isotropic media with an irregular free surface. Based on the boundary-conforming method, the viscoelastic model can be discretized to better match the irregular surface and interfaces. The 2D second-order viscoelastic equations and free surface boundary conditions are converted from the Cartesian coordinate system to the curvilinear coordinate system. The finite-difference operators are applied to approximate the viscoelastic wave equations and the irregular free surface in the curvilinear coordinate system. In addition, the convolutional perfectly matched layer (CPML) absorbing boundary condition is selected to effectively suppress artificial reflections from the model boundaries. In the numerical examples, the snapshots, shot gathers and Q-compensated pre-stack RTM results show that our algorithm can obtain an accurate structure image in viscoelastic media in the presence of surface topography.