Due Date: Monday, October 22, 2012

TA: Mandy Wong (mandyman@sep.stanford.edu)

Lab 3: Normal move-out, multiples and velocity

analysis (Fortran version)
John D. Rockefeller 1

ABSTRACT
This lab is based on material from Chapters 3 and 4 of BEI. In the first portion
you will be asked to compute Vnmo using a (x2 , t2 ) plot based on (x, t) pairs youll
pick from a cmp gather. In the second portion of the lab you will be given a
velocity scan of the same cmp gather and asked to reselect the velocity function.
In the final portion you will be given a multiple-contaminated CMP gather, and
asked to correct it based on both the primary and multiple trend of the data.

Once again, this lab is available online.

For this Lab youll
have to log onto sad from vostok.
First download the source
code for this lab, lab3 fortran.tar from the BEI class webpage
(http://sep/doku.php?id=sep:courses:gp210 labs), and save it in the
appropriate directory. Then type tar -xvf lab3 fortran.tar to create your
Lab3 fortran directory.
After you have begun this lab, do not type make clean or you will have to start
all over. Once you have printed your final paper, you can clean the directory.

PART 1: NORMAL MOVEOUT

Introduction
Chapter 3 of Jons book Basic Earth Imaging (BEI) discusses the concept of normal
moveout (NMO) velocity. It is closely related to the RMS velocity and socalled stacking velocity. The basic notion is that, in a horizontally layered earth,
1

e-mail: rock@feller.com

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NMO and VA

reflection travel-times from the flat layers approximately satisfy a hyperbolic moveout trajectory:
4h2
,
t2 2 + 2
V ( )
where t is the two-way hyperbolic reflection travel-time, is the two-way vertical
travel-time to the reflector, h is half of the source/receiver offset, and V is the NMO
velocity.

Exercise
Youll be looking for the velocity that best describes the hyperbolic traveltime. Vnmo
is the short spread hyperbola approximation for the velocity. Vrms is an approximation that uses all the offset information.
In this section, you are given a CMP gather from which you must determine
Vrms for reflections with t0 at 1s, 2s, and 3s. The water bottom reflection has t0
around 0.25s. Use the figure below, or type make cmp.view while logged into sad.
To determine Vrms :
Select some (x, t) pairs for each of the reflections
Plot these values in (x2 , t2 )
Perform a linear regression to obtain the value of Vrms . (Note: The slope of
2
the line is the inverse of Vrms
).
The velocities you determine are to be compared with the velocities youll pick in
the next exercise.

Questions
Now edit paper.tex to answer the questions below.
1. List the rms-velocities you obtained at t0 =1s, 2s, and 3s

Your Answer:

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PART 2: VELOCITY ANALYSIS

Introduction
Chapter 4 of Jons book Basic Earth Imaging (BEI) discusses the concept of NMO
velocity analysis. This is a method to estimate the rms by finding the NMO
stacking velocity which optimizes the CMP stack in some sense.
As with the first part of the lab, the basic notion is that, in a horizontally layered
earth, reflection travel-times from the flat layers approximately satisfy a hyperbolic
move-out trajectory.
In the first exercise you obtained the RMS -velocities in an old-fashioned way.
Now youll do the same thing but with the help of velocity scans. The velocity
scans in this lab display semblance, which is the normalized output-to-input energy
ratio.
This lab uses a brand-new viewer developed by Bob Clapp. You will be interacting
with icube to select velocity functions and perform NMO.
Type make vrms1.H to bring up your first icube display. There are three panels
displayed. The left panel is the original CMP gather that you will be NMO correcting.
The center panel is the CMP gather NMO corrected interactively according to the
velocity function you pick.
The right panel is where you will be picking your velocity function. It has time
(increasing downwards) as its vertical axis and velocity (increasing to the right) as
its horizontal axis.
To pick a point in the velocity panel (right panel), press ctrl-p to activate the
picking mode. The left mouse button adds picks, the middle mouse button delete
picks and the right mouse button moves picks. An o will appear at the point you
picked. If you dont see the o click on Picks tab on the left panel, then click on color
tab and change the lineptgroup from line to point.
As you pick, youll see two lines (or groups of points): one red and the other one
is blue. They correspond to the NMO velocity and the interval velocity computed
using Dix formula. (which is which ?).
Remember to pick velocities for the reflections with t0 at 1s, 2s, and 3s to compare
with the values you obtained in Part I.
The line representing your interval velocity will probably extend beyond the
boundaries of the right panel. This is expected behavior and will be considered a
right answer, but you can minimize it with careful picking.
When you are happy with your NMO corrections, save your work by clicking the
save button in the picks tab. Then you can quit icube by pull-down menu under
Main.

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The program vrms1.x reads the ascii file, output from icube, and transforms your
picked velocity into an SEP data file. Youll be asked to input the filename of the
velocity picks.

Questions
For some of the questions below you have to write equations. Either use LATEXto
format them (recommended - you need to learn how!), or use the \vspace{3in} to
give yourself 3 inches more space, and write them in by hand.
1. How does a reflection event change in the NMO corrected gather when the
chosen velocity was too high/too low?
Your Answer:

2. While making your picks, pay attention to the interval velocity curve. Dramatic changes in interval velocity are unreasonable considering seismic reflection
methodology. Why?
Your Answer:

3. If you look at the NMO corrected gather, you notice that the wavelet broadens
with the increase of offset for the top events. If you look at lowest event, the
wavelet doesnt change too much. Why?
Your Answer:

4. Compare and contrast your experience in determining the velocities by selecting

x, t pairs as in Part I versus picking a good stacking velocity curve with the aid
of a velocity scan (this portion).
Your Answer:

5. RMS vs interval velocity

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(a) How accurate do you think your estimates of RMS velocity are (in km/s) ?
Your Answer:
(b) How about your estimates of interval velocity ?
Your Answer:
In your makefile, read and understand the makerule for vrms1.H. The program
vrms1.x convert the velocities you obtained in Part I into SEP format. The
NMO command applies NMO to cmp.H with this velocity. Plot your result and
comment on the differences between the NMOed gather from Part I and Part
II. (Note: remember to include a (t, v) pair for the water bottom velocity) .
To plot your velocity functions and the NMOed gather youll need to edit your
Makefile and add figures to your paper .tex .
Your Answer:
6. Assume you want to fit a parametric NMO velocity function to your scan of the
form:
V ( ) V0 + .
For your velocity scan, what are the approximate values of V0 , and ? You
can do explicit curve fitting using your favorite method/software if you want,
but you are not required to (if you do, Matlab can be quite useful).
Your Answer:
Use the Dix relationship to convert the parametric V ( ) expression above into
a parametric interval velocity function vi . Check your general result by considering the special case of constant velocity. There are two choices of and
you can make do both. Show all derivations in full and with clarity.
Dix Equation:
vi2 =

2
i Vi2 i1 Vi1
i i1

where vi is the interval velocity of layer i, tau is the time in each layer, and V
is the rms velocity.
Your Answer:

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7. You may have noticed some artifacts in the velocity scanning process. These are
caused by CMP data truncation at (a) near offsets and (b) far offsets. Consider
a CMP gather which contains only an impulse at (a) zero offset, and (b) the
farthest offset. Write down a mathematical expression for the trajectory each
impulse will make in velocity space. Use the hyperbolic travel-time equation.
Make a sketch of the artifact trajectory for each case in velocity space. Be clear.
Your Answer:

PART 3: MULTIPLE INFESTED DATA

Exercise
Now type make vrms2.H for a new CMP gather and its semblance panel. This gather
is heavily infested with multiples.
Select a velocity function that flattens the primary reflections and save the result.
You will find this a much more difficult task, the CMP gather is infested with multiples
while the semblance scan energy is concentrated at the multiple energy velocity. Quit
icube after saving your velocity picks. Again, these picks will be transformed into
an SEP file.
Now type make vrms3.H for a display of the same CMP gather and semblance
panel. This time select the multiple train so that the multiples are flattened in the
NMO corrected gather. Quit icube after saving your velocity picks. Again, these
picks will be transformed into an SEP file.
This portion of the lab demonstrates a large problem in seismic imaging, namely
the existence and strength of multiples. Often, as in this example, the strength of
the multiples is so much greater than that of the primaries that primary energy is
overwhelmed. This makes picking a suitable velocity function, difficult, and severely
hinders any automated picking approach.

Questions
1. How could either
the prominence of the multiple energy be decreased, or
a criteria be designed that would pick the primaries rather than the multiples?
Your Answer:

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Dont forget
that multiples are not limited to the sea floor bottom
rms velocity can decrease as a function of time

Extra credit
Read sections 3.1 to 3.3 of Yilmazs book and answer questions 3.4 and 3.15 [1987
edition] or questions 3.3 and 3.8 [2001 edition] at the end of chapter 3 (see me if you
need to borrow the book).
Your Answer:

Extra (no credit): With a green pen mark all spelling and grammar errors in
this Lab. Also comment on confusing statements in the Lab or other broken and
outdated features/questions.

HAND IN
When you are all done, type scons paper.pdf at a shell prompt to rebuild a postscript
version of this lab, or make paper.pdf for a PDF version. Print out a copy of your
homework and hand it in to your TAs office or email it to the TA.