Viscoelastic Modeling and Full Waveform Inversion in Attenuating Media

Since the 1980’s a significant amount of research in the field of full waveform has been conducted,<br>and we are now at the stage where more accurate descriptions of the subsurface are<br>being sought in addition to the elastic parameters. Elasticity accounts for materials that have a<br>capacity to store mechanical energy with no dissipation of energy. A more accurate description<br>of real earth media takes into account the time-dependent nature of previous stress states. In<br>other words, the material possess a characteristic referred to as a memory effect (Robertsson<br>et al. 1994).