Seismic Migration 7: Prestack Imaging

Thursday Morning, November 14th

Controlled Illumination of Hydrocarbon Reservoirs

SM7.1

M! E. A. Rietveldl: A. J. Berkhout, and C I? A. Wapenaar, Delft

Univ. of Technology Netherlands

r-

Abstract

wavefieldhasa desiredstrength
andshapeat thetopof thereservoir.

for thedesignandapplicationof a wave

A methodis proposed
theorybasedsynthesisoperator,whichcombinesshotrecords

By synthesizing
a groupof originalshotrecordsinto oneureul

(2D or 3D) for theilluminationof a specificpartof thesubsur-

shotrecord,Ihe totalamountof datareducessignificantlyand

therefore
an enormous
speedup
of theredatuming
process
canbe

face(target,reservoir)witha pre-definedsourcewavefield.

achieved.
Afterapplication
of thesynthesis
operator
to thesurface
data,the
Synthesis of shot records

procedure
is completed
by downward
extrapolation
of thereceivers.The outputsimulates
a seismicexperiment
at thetargel,car-

Synthesizing
shotrecordsat thesurfacecanbe usedto construct

ried out with an optimumsourcewavefield. This datacan be

an area]sourceresponse.
For instance,
by simplystackingcom-

furtherprocessed
by migrationand/orinversion.

monreceivergathersfromadjacentshotrecords,a planewave
response
can be obtained.This ideawasalreadymentionedby

Themainadvantage
of theproposed
methodis thatcontrolof the

Taner(1976).If however,
thesubsurface
underinvestigation
con-

with theconvensource
wavefield is putut thetarget,in contrast

tains considerable
inhomogeneities,
the wave front of sucha

tionalwavestackprocedures,
wherecontrolof thesourerwave

planewavesourcewill be seriously
distorted
whenarrivingat the

fieldisput af thesurfuce.Moreover,theproposed
methodallows

topof theregionof interest.

trueamplitude,3D, prestackredatumingthat can be economicallyhandledon thecurrentgeneration

of supercomputers.

Controlled illumination

Introduction

If the macromodelof theoverburden

is known,it is possible
to

Thepurpose
of redatuming
is to transform
surfacedatain sucha

recordsin sucha waythata particularly

shaped
wavefrontat the

consh-uct
an operator,whichenablesus to synthesize
the shot
way thatthe acquisitionlevel is transported
from the surfaceto

surfaceilluminatesthereservoir
in a predefmed,
controlled
way.

anotherlevel (datum) somewhere

downin thesubsurface.
This
:an be doneby removingthe propagation
effectsat the source

With our matrixformulationof the forwardmodel,(Berkhout,

andat thereceiverside(ao. Berryhill,1984).

1985),it canbe easilyshownthatthissynthesis

operatory (z,,)
equalsthewavefield at thesurfacethatis constructed
by back-

[t is possibleto derivefrom thegeneralredatumingscheme,an

wardpropagation
of thedesiredsourcewavefield at the larget

alternativeschemewheretheredatumingis performed
per shot

S:y(a,:

record(a.o. Wapenaarand Berkhout,1989). Such a scheme

(1)

avoidsthedatareordening
process
andallowsirregularshotpositions.

wherethecomplexconjugated
W-(z,,,zm>
describes
thebackward
propagation
fromthetargetdepthz,,,to thesurfacezO.

If themaininterestis structural
information,it is very attractive
to combinea groupof adjacentshotrecordsinto onenew shot
record,simulatingthe response
of a synthesized
urea1surface
source.We will showthatthesynthesis
processcan be donein

sucha way thatour targel(e.g.a reservoir)is illuminatedin an

To illustratethis,a subsurface
modelandoneoutof the 128shot

records
areshownin Fig. 1. In themodelthedesired
sourcewave

field is indicated,
i.e. a finitehorizontal
planewavejustabovethe

target Fig. 2 showsthe synthesisoperatorin the space-time

optimumway. This meansthat after downwardpropagation

domain,obtainedby backpropagation
of theplanewaveat 500m

hroughan inhomogeneous
overburdenthe synthesized
source

depth.Notethatthesynthesis
operator
is designed
in sucha way

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Controlled illumination of reservoirs

thattheurea1SCWC~
a! thetargetstartsat t = 0. The diffractions

._.-_.
downwardextrapolation
withthemethodof controlledilhrmina

in theoperatormustbe presentto realizethelaterallimitationof

tionhasonlybeenperformed
ononearealshotrecord.

thedesiredarealsource.Eachtraceof thesynthesis
operator
repInfluence of missing data

resentsthe desiredsourcesignalof the surfacepoint sourceat

thatspecificlateralposition.Fig. 3 showstheforwardpropagat-

In thepreviousexamplea fixedspread
acquisition
wasused(Fig

ing synthesized
sourcewavefield. Note thatwhile propagating

8a).In practicehowever,
a movingspread
acquisition
is generally

throughtheoverburden
theshapedwavefrontis turnedinto the

used.To seetheinfluenceof missingshotsandmissingfaroffseu

desiredsourcewavefield onceit arrivesat thetopof thetarget,

Applicationof the synthesisoperator? (z,,) in the frequency
domainto the 128 shotrecords,i.e. the columnsof the data
matrixP&J, yieldstheresponseat the surface6;,.,(z& dueto
thesynthesized
sourcewavefield:

anexampleis madeusinga fixedspreadacquisition

withonly64
surfacesourcepositions(Fig. 8b), and a movingsplit spread
acquisition
consisting
of 64 surface
source
positions
witheach65
receivers(Fig. 8~). For the desiredsourcewavefield a normal
incidenceplanewavewaschosenat thetopof thetargetwith a
lateralextensionequal to the lateralspreadof the 64 surface

E&O) = U&3) ?+ (x0).

(2)

This applicationinvolvesa weightedcommonreceiverstackin

sourcepositionsas usedin themovingspreadacquisition(Fig.

9).

thefrequency
domain,theweightsbeinggivenby therelatedfre-

Fist the synthesis

operatoris calculated.
The synthesis
operator

quencycomponents
of the synthesis
operator.
Anotherway of

as shownin Fig. 10 showsclearlythe requireddiffractiontails

sayingthis is thatin the tune domaineachshotrecordis con-

dueto thelimitedapertureof thedesiredsourcewavefield at the

volvedby onemaceof Fig. 2 priorto commonreceiverstacking.

target.Notethatduetotheshotrangelimitation(Fig. 8b/c)onlya

Fig.4 showstheresultaftersynthesis.

partof thesynthesis
operator
canbeused.Applicationof thesynthesisoperator
to thesurface
dataandextrapolation
of thereceiv-

Redatuming after synthesis

ersleadsto theredatumed
response.
Themigratedsectionof this

To obtainthe redatumedresponse
at the top of the target,the

redatumed
response
showsthestructure
of the reservoirwithin

upwardpropagation
effectfromthetargetto thedetectors
at the

the rangeof the predefmedarealsourceperfectlyfor all three

surface
mustbe removed.Thisis doneby a downward
extrapola-

acquisitiongrids(Fig. lla/b/c). Note thatfor the resultof Fig.

ion, which resultsin the responseat the top of the target

llb only half,andfor theresultof Fig. llc only a quarterof the

&,, (z,,,)dueto thepredefined

desiredsourcewavefield:

datais usedin comparison

withtheresultasshownin Fig. 1la.
In conclusionthe exampleindicatesthat the proposed
method

E&m)

= [w+@&z1*~~&&

wherethe complexconjugated
W(&&

(3)

doesnotbreakdownin caseof missingfar offsets.The structural

represents
theinverse

informationfrom the reservoirunder investigationis still

:xtrapolation
at thereceiverside.The resultof downward
extrap-

revealedperfectly.The importantissueof obtainingtrueampli-

elationis shownin Fig. 5. The resultaftermigrationis shownin

ruderesultswhenworkingwithan incomplete
datamatrixis still

zig. 6. Note that the structurein the reservoiris accurately

underinvestigation.

maged.
Conclusions
Comparison with conventional redatumlng
It is arguedthatanoperator
canbeconstructed,
whichenablesthe
t canbe theoretically
shownthattheresults,asobtainedby the

synthesis
of shotrecords
at thesurfacein sucha way thata given

noposedmethod,are fully equivalentto theredatuming

of shot

partof thesubsurface
(reservoir,target)will be illuminatedin a

ecordsat thesurfaceto thetopof thetargetfollowedby synthe-

predefinedway.By synthesizing
shotrecordsat the surface,an

is at the targetFig. 7 showstheresultobtainedby redatuming

importantdata reduction(typicallya factor100) is achieved,

beindividualshotrecordsfust, followedby a planewavesyn-

speeding
up thetotalprocessing
timefor thedownwardextrapo-

resisat the target(comparewith Fig. 5). This is impressive

as

lationby roughlythesamefactor.

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Controlled illumination of reservoirs

References

Whentheprocess
is repeated
for a smallnumberof illumination
angles,it providesundistorted
angle-dependent
reflectioninfor-

Berkhout,A. J., 1985,Seismicmigration:Imagingof acou

mationaboutthetargetin a veryefficientandaccurate
way.

energyby wave field extrapolation.

A. TheoreticalAspe
It is shownthatgoodresultsarealsoobtainedby themethod,if a

ElsevierSciencePublishing
Company,3rdedition.

moving spreadacquisitionis used.The true amplitudeissue

Berryhill, J. R., 1984, Short Note: Wave-equationdatum
ing

relatedto missingdatais stillunderinvestigation.

beforestack:Geophysics,
49, no. 11,2064-2066.
Themethodis economically
attractive
dueto thesignificantdatareduction
thatis obtainedby thesynthesis.
Thismakestheappli-

Tarter,M. T., 1976,Simplan:simulatedplane-waveexplorati

on:

cationof themethodto prestack

3D datavolumesveryattractive

46th Ann. Intemat. Mtg., Sot. Expl. Geophys.,Expanc

jed

andfeasible.

Abstracts,
186187.
Wapenaar,
C. P.A., andBerkhout,
A. J., 1989,Elasticwavefield

Acknowledgment
We thank the membersof the DELPHI consortiumfor their

extrapolation:
Redatuming
of single-and multicomponent
st:ismicdata,ElsevierSciencePublishing
CompanyInc.

tinancialsupport
andtheirstimulating
comments.

hleral position
-

acquisitiongrid

i 500mb

-600

~-400
.E
2000mta

desired source KWB field

500

E
'3 .200

Fig. 1: Thesubwfacemodelandoneshotrecord

664

Fig. 2: Thesynthesis
operator.

g 200
.e
E 400
.=

Fig. 3: Propagation
ofthesynthesizedsource
wavefield throughtheoverburden
w the
topofthetarget,resultingin thedesiredsourcewavefield at the target.Here
a horizontal plane wavewaschosen.

1283

Fig. 4: The synthesized

result. The sourceis a
plane wave sourceat z = 500 m; the
receiversare at thesurface.

Controlled illumination of reservoirs

redalum
level

E 200
E
E
Z
400

600

Fig. 6: The migratedresult.

Fig. 5: The redatumedresult. The source is a plane

wave source at z = SW m; the receivers
are also at z = 500 m.

(a)

Fig. 7: Resultfrom synthesisafter redoturning

Compare with Fig. 5.

shot

fixed spread acquisition

fixed spread acquisition, shol range truncallon

moving split spread acquisition

Fig. 8: Influence of data truncation. On the left-hand sidethe data is shown as used in the previous example, where a fued spread acquisition was used (a),
In the middle the available data is shown if the shot range is limited(b). On the right-hand side the available data is shown when a movingsplit
spread acquisition is used(c).

acquisikm grid

1600
0

i 500 ml,
g
S

Fig. 9: The desired source wavefield.

f4

shot range

500

E
.E
6
d

Fig. 10: The synthesisoperator. Note that due to theshotrange limitationonlythe

operator can be usedfor the geometriesas
middle part of the synthesis
depicted in Fig. Xblc.

sbt

range

shot range

500

700

900

1100
fixed spread acquisition

fixed spread acquisition, shot range l~ncatiin

moving split spread acquisitiin

Fig. 1 I : The migration results. On the left hand sidethe migrated result is shown whena fzxed spread acquisition is used(a). In the middle
the result is shown for the case of shot
truncation (b). On the right handside the result is depicted when a moving split spread
acquisition is used(c).

1284