Residual Moveout in Angle Gathers for Converted Waves

Abstract

Summary The converted waves recorded in multicomponent seismic data have the potential to illuminate the areas underneath complex structures better than P-waves. However, the converted waves have not been widely used in depth imaging. Common industry practice is still limited to P-waves only mainly because the S-wave velocity model estimation via analysis of converted-wave moveout and tomography is still immature. This paper derives general residual moveout (RMO) equations for converted waves, which can potentially be used for angle-domain converted-wave tomography. Our derivation does not have the certain assumption that the lateral positions of CCP images remain unchanged with velocity errors. Therefore, the proposed RMO equations are more accurate. The derived equations are validated using different numerical tests.