Staining algorithm for seismic modeling and migration

Abstract

In seismic migration, some structures such as those in subsalt shadow zones are not imaged well. The signal in these areas may be even weaker than the artifacts elsewhere. We evaluated a method to significantly improve the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) in poorly illuminated areas of the model. We constructed a “phantom” wavefield: an extension of the wavefield to the complex domain. The imaginary wavefield was synchronized with the real wavefield, but it contained only the events relevant to a target region of the model, which was specified using a staining algorithm. The real wavefield interacted with the entire model. However, all structures except for the target were transparent to the imaginary wavefield, which is excited only when the real wavefront arrives at the target structure. The real and the imaginary source wavefields were crosscorrelated with the regular receiver wavefield. The results were revealed in two images: the conventional reverse time migration image and an image of the target region only. Synthetic experiments showed that the S/N of the target structures was improved significantly, with other structures effectively muted.