Elastic Full Waveform Inversion of Multi-Component OBC Seismic Data - Application to Shear Wave Statics

Elastic full waveform inversion of seismic reflection data is an alternative to conventional stack based processing. Both travel-time and amplitude information within shot domain data are used to invert for the sub-surface velocity, from a starting model containing the long wavelength features. Although full waveform inversion is computationally intense, the ability to invert for both P- and S-wave velocity, in a data driven manner, makes the computational burden worthwhile. Building on previous developments in waveform inversion, such as the benefit of wide-aperture data, we consider multi-component ocean-bottom cable seismic data. Synthetic examples show that it is possible to invert for and to quantify both P- and S-wave velocity. Example synthetic work is presented, followed by a summary of work in progress on real data. Inversion for the shallow sub-seabed region is of particular interest. Successful inversion for the shallow region may be used to help solve shear-wave static problems observed in OBC data. This idea is explored in a synthetic example, and acts as an objective for real data application, with results to be presented.