Building Subsurface Velocity Models with Sharp Interfaces Using Interface-Guided Seismic Full-Waveform Inversion

摘要

AbstractReverse-time migration has the potential to image complex subsurface structures, including steeply-dipping fault zones, but the method requires an accurate velocity model. Acoustic- and elastic-waveform inversion is a promising tool for high-resolution velocity model building. Because of the ill-posedness of acoustic- and elastic-waveform inversion, it is a great challenge to obtain accurate velocity models containing sharp interfaces. To improve velocity model building, we develop an acoustic- and elastic-waveform inversion method with an interface-guided modified total-variation regularization scheme to improve the inversion accuracy and robustness, particularly for models with sharp interfaces and steeply-dipping fault zones with widths much smaller than the seismic wavelength. The new regularization scheme incorporates interface information into seismic full-waveform inversion. The interface information of subsurface interfaces is obtained iteratively using migration imaging during waveform inversion. Seismic migration is robust for subsurface imaging. Our new acoustic- and elastic-waveform inversion takes advantage of the robustness of migration imaging to improve velocity estimation. We use synthetic seismic data for a complex model containing sharp interfaces and several steeply-dipping fault zones to validate the improved capability of our new acoustic- and elastic-waveform inversion method. Our inversion results are much better than those produced without using interface-guided regularization. Acoustic- and elastic-waveform inversion with an interface-guided modified total-variation regularization scheme has the potential to accurately build subsurface velocity models with sharp interfaces and/or steep fault zones.