Diffraction Imaging Based on the Diffraction Operator

Seismic diffractions carry detailed structure information. Some of these structures are well-known as common hydrocarbon traps, such as faults, pinch-outs, unconformities and structures the size of which is in the order of the wavelength. Therefore, the development of computational resource capable of detecting diffractor points with a good resolution is desirable, but has been a challenge in the area of seismic processing. In this work, we present an approach to seismic diffraction imaging based on the diffraction operator, which can be used in both the time and depth domains, in accordance with the complexity of the area. This method that does not require any knowledge apart from the migration velocity field, i.e., rms velocities or interval velocities consists in application of pattern recognition to the amplitudes along the diffraction operator.