High performance computational modeling of 3D seismic wavefields Offshore NW Australia

Abstract

Recent significant advances in computer technology are providing geophysicists with more effective tools to explore complex phenomena. This has been facilitated by the increasing availability of GPUs (Graphics Processing Units) and high performance computing (HPC) clusters (with extensive parallelisation), the increasing power of individual processors and increases in memory capacity. We are using these HPC capabilities to run 3D staggered grid elastic finite differencing code to explore the effect of complex wave phenomena in seismic data. There are many important challenges apparent in seismic data from the North West Shelf off Western Australia'' coast including complex overburden effects and azimuthal anisotropy. We are using HPC modelling codes to increase understanding of the mechanisms by which these phenomena affect seismic wavefields. This new capability to run large, 3D, elastic models enables us to simulate realistic wavefields which can be used to more accurately predict and analyse complex wavefield effects in real data, and to test and improve imaging algorithms on full, three dimensional data sets where we know the underlying model/imaging solution.