Sub-salt Illumination by the Feasible Green's Function of Covering Sediments

Abstract

The presence of geometrical shadow zones in the model requires a feasible Green's function satisfying the generalized Fermat's (Hadamard's) principle. We show that this function in the vicinity of geological obstacles (salt domes, reef adges, pinchouts, etc.) includes a cascade diffraction term that improves the conventional Green's function. We provide numerical examples of the double-diffraction approximation of the feasible Green's function and its wave components in a sub-salt zone.