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Seismic imaging of subsurface structure using tomographic migration velocity analysis: a case study of South China Sea data

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Abstract

Seismic migration algorithms are often used to reveal subsurface structures and can be roughly divided into stacking methods, pre-stack time migration methods and pre-stack depth migration methods. In theory, pre-stack depth migration methods can provide the most accurate subsurface images. However, these methods are sensitive to the accuracy of the migration velocity model, and thus the creation of a precise migration velocity model is one of the most important steps in seismic processing. We applied the tomographic travel-time inversion and the method of pre-stack Kirchhoff depth migration-based migration velocity analysis (MVA) to certain South China Sea data, in which we iteratively inverted the precise, high-resolution migration velocity model. We selected travel-time differences from the offset-domain common image gathers of the pre-stack Kirchhoff depth migration and inverted the travel-time differences for velocity updating. After several iterations, both the precise migration velocity model and the corresponding pre-stack depth migration image were obtained. The comparisons with Normal Move-out stacking and pre-stack Kirchhoff time migration confirm that the tomographic MVA and corresponding pre-stack Kirchhoff depth migration provide the best image quality and highest-resolution subsurface images from the South China Sea data.

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded by National Science and Technology Major Project of China (Grant No. 2011ZX05030-004-001). We thank Prof. ChunFeng Li and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments, which greatly improved this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Shale Gas and Geoengineering, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    Yibo Wang, Jialiang Xu, Lele Zhang & Xu Chang

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Jialiang Xu & Lele Zhang

  3. South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510301, China

    Songlei Xie

  4. China National Offshore Oil Corporation, Beijing, 100027, China

    Xiangdong Du

Authors
  1. Yibo Wang
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  2. Jialiang Xu
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  3. Songlei Xie
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  4. Lele Zhang
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  5. Xiangdong Du
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  6. Xu Chang
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Correspondence to Yibo Wang.

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Wang, Y., Xu, J., Xie, S. et al. Seismic imaging of subsurface structure using tomographic migration velocity analysis: a case study of South China Sea data. Mar Geophys Res 36, 127–137 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11001-014-9245-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11001-014-9245-5

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