Use Ray-Based Modeling Methods to Plan, Analyze and Control Subsalt Imaging
Isabelle Lecomte, Tina Kaschwich, Håvar Gjøystdal, and Einar Iversen.
EAGE Subsalt Imaging Workshop, Cairo 2009.
Though ray tracing in its standard forms is not able to produce complete synthetic
seismograms, as may be required for processing tests, it may be used in completely different
manners and thus providing other type of information useful for the industry. A now classic
example is the use of ray-based illumination studies to test surveys for subsalt imaging, where
the output are various maps of attributes along given horizons, e.g., so-called hit maps
(reflection points), etc. This is especially interesting when testing various survey azimuth
geometries. Another technique allows to find azimuth and offset ranges of a survey to
illuminate given points on a horizon, e.g., below a salt dome. Going further, an efficient
method can also generate migration amplitudes for the same horizons without explicitly
generating synthetic seismograms. In a more local approach, a PSDM simulator uses ray-generated
Green’s functions to simulate 3D PSDM cubes, including 3D illumination and
resolution effects. Such simulated PSDM results allow quickly testing subsalt imaging effects
on detailed reservoir targets, without needing to compute synthetic data and process them.
Download paper here
