DUG Elastic MP-FWI Imaging is a unique approach to seismic processing and imaging which turns the traditional paradigm on its head. It replaces not only traditional processing and imaging workflows, but also the subsequent inversion workflow for elastic rock properties.
The traditional processing workflow involves the testing and application of dozens of steps such as deghosting, designature, demultiple and regularisation, which are all designed to overcome the limitations of conventional imaging. These workflows are complex, subjective, and very time-consuming due to their serial nature and they rely on many assumptions and simplifications. All of these issues impact the output data quality. The resulting, primary-only data then undergoes a similarly complex model-building workflow to derive an estimate of the subsurface velocity, which is used for depth imaging. Post-migration processing is performed before the pre-stack reflectivity undergoes another workflow to derive rock properties that feed into quantitative interpretation, also relying on simplifications of the actual physics. As a result of these workflows, projects can take many months to years to complete.
Elastic MP-FWI Imaging accounts for both compressional and shear waves, handling variations in seismic wave dynamics as a function of incidence angle, including in the presence of high impedance contrasts and onshore near-surface geological complexity. Multiples and converted waves are now treated as valuable additional signal, increasing sampling, resolution and constraining the inverted parameters.
As well as three-component reflectivity and velocity, DUG Elastic MP-FWI Imaging enables the estimation of fundamental rock properties like P-impedance, density and Vp/Vs from field data, without the need for a secondary amplitude variation with angle (AVA) inversion step. DUG Elastic MP-FWI Imaging simultaneously resolves not only subsurface structural features but also quantitative rock property information while avoiding the need for extensive data pre-processing and (post-imaging!) AVA-inversion workflows.
