Wavepath Tomography for Subsalt Velocity Model Building

P057 Wavepath Tomography for Subsalt Velocity Model Building M.M. Fliedner* (3DGeo Inc.) W. Curry (Stanford University) M.P. Brown (3DGeo Inc.) & D. Bevc (3DGeo Inc.) SUMMARY In complex velocity models such as below rugose salt bodies wavefield continuation migration is usually superior to Kirchhoff methods because of multi-pathing sharp velocity contrasts and the bandlimited nature of seismic wave propagation. Wavepath tomography offers a way to build the velocity model in a way that is consistent with the migration operator: instead of tracing rays to backproject residual velocities a "wavepath" is constructed using the actual wavefield continuation operator to represent the