Imaging complexity in the Earth – Case studies with optimised ray tomography

Abstract

In the past 10 years, the resolution of tomographic solutions has seen a continuous increase because of evolving sophistication in methodologies and technology. A vital issue in the data domain is accuracy and density of residual move-out picks that are used to derive tomographic velocity-model updates. A new automated method allows for precise tracking of accurate residual move-out on pre-stack depth-migrated gathers and consequently the fast determination of dense, high quality travel time residuals for seismic tomography. The determination of small-scale anomalies ultimately leads to flatter pre-stack depth-migrated gathers and consequently better-focused structural images.