Produção Científica
Artigo em Revista
| Time-to-depth conversion and velocity estimation by image-wavefront propagation A new strategy for time-to-depth conversion and interval-velocity estimation is based entirely on image-wavefront propagation without the need to follow individual image rays. The procedure has three main features: (1) It computes the velocity field and the traveltime directly, allowing us to dispense with dynamic ray tracing; (2) it requires only the knowledge of the image wavefront at the previous time step; and (3) it inherently smooths the image wavefront, inhibiting the formation of caustics. As a consequence, the method tends to be faster than the usual techniques and does not carry the constraints and limitations inherent to common ray-tracing strategies. Synthetic tests using a Gaussian velocity anomaly as well as the Marmousi velocity model, and two smoothed versions of it show the feasibility of the method. A field-data example demonstrates the use of different numerical procedures. Our results indicate that the present strategy can be used to construct reasonable depth-velocity models that can be used as reliable starting models for velocity-model building in depth migration or for tomographic methods. |
Artigo em Revista
| Optimization of the parameters in complex Padé Fourier finite-difference migration Complex Padé Fourier finite-difference migration is a stable one-way wave-equation technique that allows for better treatment of evanescent modes than its real counterpart, in this way producing fewer artifacts. As for real Fourier finite-difference (FFD) migration, its parameters can be optimized to improve the imaging of steeply dipping reflectors. The dip limitation of the FFD operator depends on the variation of the velocity field. We have developed a wide-angle approximation for the one-way continuation operator by means of optimization of the Padé coefficients and the most important velocity-dependent parameter. We have evaluated the achieved quality of the approximate dispersion relation in dependence on the chosen function of the ratio between the model and reference velocities under consideration of the number of terms in the Padé approximation and the branch-cut rotation angle. The optimized parameters are chosen based on the migration results and the computational cost. We found that by using the optimized parameters, a one-term expansion achieves the highest dip angles. The implementations were validated on the Marmousi data set and SEG/EAGE salt model data. |
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| Source wavelet and local wave propagation effects on the amplitude-variation-with-offset response of thin-layer models: A physical modeling study. In target layers with thicknesses below the vertical seismic resolution as thin layers, the tuning effect/interference between the wave propagation modes may increase the challenge of doing amplitude-variation-with-offset (AVO) analysis because it is difficult to recover the primary PP amplitudes embedded in the data by further seismic data processing. Thus, we have investigated the importance of the primary PP reflections, locally P-SV converted waves, and internal multiple reflections in the amplitude response of two thin-layer seismic physical models. One model consists of a thin water layer embedded between two nylon plates, and another model with a thin acrylic layer surrounded by water. Numerical modeling using the reflectivity method was applied to analyze each wave propagation mode and the source waveform role in the experimental data. Before the experimental reflection data acquisition, we characterized two source and receiver piezoelectric transducer (PET) pairs: one with a circular plane face and the other with a semispherical face. We measured the source wavelet, its dominant frequency, and the PETs’ directivity pattern. Semispherical PETs were chosen to acquire common midpoint reflection data. Thereafter, a processing workflow was applied to remove linear events interfering with the target reflections and to correct amplitudes due to transmission losses, source/receiver directivity, and geometric spreading effects. Finally, we investigated the thin-layer targets near incidence angle amplitude and the AVO response. The results showed that the interference between the primary PP reflections and the locally converted shear waves may considerably affect the observed amplitude response. The source wavelet bandwidth appeared as a second-order effect, and the internal multiple reflections were practically negligible. These results suggested that in real data sets, it is important to investigate the wave propagation modes and source wavelet role in the amplitudes observed, before deciding the AVO analysis/inversion workflow that should be adopted. |
Artigo em Revista
| The magnetometric resistivity method in a stratified medium having resistivities varying exponentially with depth Using a known solution for the electric potential and Ampère’s law, the azimuthal component of the magnetic field is deduced in a horizontally layered medium with a current point source placed anywhere, considering that the resistivity in each layer varies exponentially with depth. This theoretical result contributes to model the magnetometric resistivity method, which had been applied onshore, e.g., for mineral exploration, offshore to investigate the permafrost layer at bottom sea, hydrothermal flux, and natural resources. We have numerically tested the obtained formulation against previous results found in the literature that use distinct electrode and sensor dispositions, with models having three and four layers. Introducing the exponential variation, it verified the sensitivity to physical and geometric parameters comparing the exponential and homogeneous models. |
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| A high-resolution weighted AB semblance for dealing with amplitude-variation-with-offset phenomenon Velocity analysis is an essential step in seismic reflection data processing. The conventional and fastest method to estimate how velocity changes with increasing depth is to calculate semblance coefficients. Traditional semblance has two problems: low time and velocity resolution and an inability to handle amplitude variation-with-offset (AVO) phenomenon. Although a method known as the AB semblance can arrive at peak velocities in the areas with an AVO anomaly, it has a lower velocity resolution than conventional semblance. We have developed a weighted AB semblance method that can handle both problems simultaneously. We have developed two new weighting functions to weight the AB semblance to enhance the resolution of velocity spectra in the time and velocity directions. In this way, we increase the time and velocity resolution while eliminating the AVO problem. The first weighting function is defined based on the ratio between the first and the second singular values of the time window to improve the resolution of velocity spectra in velocity direction. The second weighting function is based on the position of the seismic wavelet in the time window, thus enhancing the resolution of velocity spectra in time direction.We use synthetic and field data examples to show the superior performance of our approach over the traditional one. |
Artigo em Revista
| Resolution in crosswell traveltime tomography: The dependence on illumination The key aspect limiting resolution in crosswell traveltime tomography is illumination, a well-known result but not well-exemplified. We have revisited resolution in the 2D case using a simple geometric approach based on the angular aperture distribution and the Radon transform properties. We have analytically found that if an isolated interface had dips contained in the angular aperture limits, it could be reconstructed using just one particular projection. By inversion of synthetic data, we found that a slowness field could be approximately reconstructed from a set of projections if the interfaces delimiting the slowness field had dips contained in the available angular apertures. On the one hand, isolated artifacts might be present when the dip is near the illumination limit. On the other hand, in the inverse sense, if an interface is interpretable from a tomogram, there is no guarantee that it corresponds to a true interface. Similarly, if a body is present in the interwell region, it is diffusely imaged, but its interfaces, particularly vertical edges, cannot be resolved and additional artifacts might be present. Again, in the inverse sense, there is no guarantee that an isolated anomaly corresponds to a true anomalous body, because this anomaly could be an artifact. These results are typical of ill-posed inverse problems: an absence of a guarantee of correspondence to the true distribution. The limitations due to illumination may not be solved by the use of constraints. Crosswell tomograms derived with the use of sparsity constraints, using the discrete cosine transform and Daubechies bases, essentially reproduce the same features seen in tomograms obtained with the smoothness constraint. Interpretation must be done taking into consideration a priori information and the particular limitations due to illumination, as we have determined with a real data case. |
Artigo em Revista
| A combined time-frequency filtering strategy for Q-factor compensation of poststack seismic data Attenuation is one of the main factors responsible for limiting resolution of the seismic method. It selectively damps the higher frequency components of the signal more strongly, causing the earth to work as a low-pass filter. This loss of high-frequency energy may be partially compensated by application of inverse QQ filtering routines. However, such routines often increase the noise level of the data, thereby restricting their use. These filters also require a quality factor profile as an input parameter, which is rarely available. In recent years, alternative methods for stable inverse QQ filtering have been presented in the literature, which makes it possible to correct the attenuation without introducing so much noise. In addition, new methods have been proposed to estimate the quality factor from seismic reflection data. We have developed a three-stage workflow oriented for attenuation correction in stacked sections. In the first stage, a trace-by-trace estimate of the quality factor is performed along the section. The second stage consists of preparing the data for attenuation compensation, which is performed via a special filtering strategy for efficient noise removal to avoid high-frequency noise bursts. The last stage is the application of a stable inverse QQ filtering. As an example, we applied the proposed flow in a seismic section to compensate for the attenuation caused by shallow gas accumulation. Careful data preparation proved to be a key factor in achieving successful attenuation compensation. |
Artigo em Revista
| Migration velocity analysis using residual diffraction moveout: a real-data example Unfocused seismic diffraction events carry direct information about errors in the migration-velocity model. The residual-diffraction-moveout (RDM) migration-velocity-analysis (MVA) method is a recent technique that extracts this information by means of adjusting ellipses or hyperbolas to uncollapsed migrated diffractions. In this paper, we apply this method, which has been tested so far only on synthetic data, to a real data set from the Viking Graben. After application of a plane-wave-destruction (PWD) filter to attenuate the reflected energy, the diffractions in the real data become interpretable and can be used for the RDM method. Our analysis demonstrates that the reflections need not be completely removed for this purpose. Beyond the need to identify and select diffraction events in post-stack migrated sections in the depth domain, the method has a very low computational cost and processing time. To reach an acceptable velocity model of comparable quality as one obtained with common-midpoint (CMP) processing, only two iterations were necessary. |
Artigo em Revista
| A separable strong-anisotropy approximation for pure qP-wave propagation in transversely isotropic media The wave equation can be tailored to describe wave propagation in vertical-symmetry axis transversely isotropic (VTI) media. The qP- and qS-wave eikonal equations derived from the VTI wave equation indicate that in the pseudoacoustic approximation, their dispersion relations degenerate into a single one. Therefore, when using this dispersion relation for wave simulation, for instance, by means of finite-difference approximations, both events are generated. To avoid the occurrence of the pseudo-S-wave, the qP-wave dispersion relation alone needs to be approximated. This can be done with or without the pseudoacoustic approximation. A Padé expansion of the exact qP-wave dispersion relation leads to a very good approximation. Our implementation of a separable version of this equation in the mixed space-wavenumber domain permits it to be compared with a low-rank solution of the exact qP-wave dispersion relation. Our numerical experiments showed that this approximation can provide highly accurate wavefields, even in strongly anisotropic inhomogeneous media. The wave equation can be tailored to describe wave propagation in vertical-symmetry axis transversely isotropic (VTI) media. The qP- and qS-wave eikonal equations derived from the VTI wave equation indicate that in the pseudoacoustic approximation, their dispersion relations degenerate into a single one. Therefore, when using this dispersion relation for wave simulation, for instance, by means of finite-difference approximations, both events are generated. To avoid the occurrence of the pseudo-S-wave, the qP-wave dispersion relation alone needs to be approximated. This can be done with or without the pseudoacoustic approximation. A Padé expansion of the exact qP-wave dispersion relation leads to a very good approximation. Our implementation of a separable version of this equation in the mixed space-wavenumber domain permits it to be compared with a low-rank solution of the exact qP-wave dispersion relation. Our numerical experiments showed that this approximation can provide highly accurate wavefields, even in strongly anisotropic inhomogeneous media. The wave equation can be tailored to describe wave propagation in vertical-symmetry axis transversely isotropic (VTI) media. The qP- and qS-wave eikonal equations derived from the VTI wave equation indicate that in the pseudoacoustic approximation, their dispersion relations degenerate into a single one. Therefore, when using this dispersion relation for wave simulation, for instance, by means of finite-difference approximations, both events are generated. To avoid the occurrence of the pseudo-S-wave, the qP-wave dispersion relation alone needs to be approximated. This can be done with or without the pseudoacoustic approximation. A Padé expansion of the exact qP-wave dispersion relation leads to a very good approximation. Our implementation of a separable version of this equation in the mixed space-wavenumber domain permits it to be compared with a l |
Artigo em Revista
| Offset-continuation stacking: Theory and proof of concept The offset-continuation operation (OCO) is a seismic configuration transform designed to simulate a seismic section, as if obtained with a certain source-receiver offset using the data measured with another offset. Based on this operation, we have introduced the OCO stack, which is a multiparameter stacking technique that transforms 2D/2.5D prestack multicoverage data into a stacked common-offset (CO) section. Similarly to common-midpoint and common-reflection-surface stacks, the OCO stack does not rely on an a priori velocity model but provided velocity information itself. Because OCO is dependent on the velocity model used in the process, the method can be combined with trial-stacking techniques for a set of models, thus allowing for the extraction of velocity information. The algorithm consists of data stacking along so-called OCO trajectories, which approximate the common-reflection-point trajectory, i.e., the position of a reflection event in the multicoverage data as a function of source-receiver offset in dependence on the medium velocity and the local event slope. These trajectories are the ray-theoretical solutions to the OCO image-wave equation, which describes the continuous transformation of a CO reflection event from one offset to another. Stacking along trial OCO trajectories for different values of average velocity and local event slope allows us to determine horizon-based optimal parameter pairs and a final stacked section at arbitrary offset. Synthetic examples demonstrate that the OCO stack works as predicted, almost completely removing random noise added to the data and successfully recovering the reflection events.The offset-continuation operation (OCO) is a seismic configuration transform designed to simulate a seismic section, as if obtained with a certain source-receiver offset using the data measured with another offset. Based on this operation, we have introduced the OCO stack, which is a multiparameter stacking technique that transforms 2D/2.5D prestack multicoverage data into a stacked common-offset (CO) section. Similarly to common-midpoint and common-reflection-surface stacks, the OCO stack does not rely on an a priori velocity model but provided velocity information itself. Because OCO is dependent on the velocity model used in the process, the method can be combined with trial-stacking techniques for a set of models, thus allowing for the extraction of velocity information. The algorithm consists of data stacking along so-called OCO trajectories, which approximate the common-reflection-point trajectory, i.e., the position of a reflection event in the multicoverage data as a function of source-receiver offset in dependence on the medium velocity and the local event slope. These trajectories are the ray-theoretical solutions to the OCO image-wave equation, which describes the continuous transformation of a CO reflection event from one offset to another. Stacking along trial OCO trajectories for different values of ave |
