Direct envelope-based reflection full waveform inversion for shallow marine seismic data

Abstract

Accurate velocity models that include long-wavelength components are required for precise subsurface structure imaging and estimation of geophysical properties. To successfully build the long-wavelength velocity using full waveform inversion (FWI), sufficient offset and low-frequency components are necessary. However, due to the limited acquisition conditions, it is difficult to operate long offset and low-frequency sources in coastal shallow marine. Short offset makes the data dominated by reflections, and FWI intensively updates the surface boundaries. Although reflection full waveform inversion (RFWI) has been proposed to reconstruct long-wavelength velocity models using reflection data, it suffers from cycle skipping when low-frequency component is insufficient. To overcome these limitations, we propose a direct envelope-based RFWI (DE-RFWI) that incorporates the direct envelope into the RFWI. By employing envelope-based energy information from reflection data, DE-RFWI facilitates the reconstruction of long-wavelength velocity. The proposed method employs the Hilbert transform-based implicit gradient decomposition technique to address additional computational cost. To verify the proposed method, DE-RFWI was applied to synthetic test with a shallow marine condition and field data acquired in Yeongil Bay, South Korea. The inversion results for field data were evaluated by analyzing arrival-time alignment in envelope domain. The results demonstrate that DE-RFWI can reliably reconstruct long-wavelength velocity models in shallow marine seismic data and improve reflector continuity and resolution in the reverse time migration imaging.

Keywords

Long-wavelength velocity model / Shallow marine seismic / Short offset / Reflection full waveform inversion / Direct envelope

Funding

This work was supported by the Basic Research Project “Development of operation management infrastructure for TAMHAE3 and seamless seismic technology connecting coastal areas (26-3322)” of the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT of Korea.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest or competing interests.

Author contributions

Conceptualization: Kyoungmin Lim, Jiho Ha Formal analysis: Wookeen Chung, Jungkyun Shin Investigation: Kyoungmin Lim, Jiho Ha, Jungkyun Shin Methodology: Kyoungmin Lim, Jiho Ha Supervision: Jiho Ha Validation: Wookeen Chung Visualization: Kyoungmin Lim Writing–original draft: Kyoungmin Lim, Jiho Ha Writing–review & editing: All authors

Availability of data

All data analyzed have been presented in the paper.

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