Considerations for a Model Building Paradigm Shift in the Gulf of Mexico

Velocity model building in the last decade has been based on tomography and scenario testing of various flavors. With the broad acceptance of integrated full waveform inversion in the model building step, the need for longer offset and lower frequencies is apparent. We present a model study and field observations to investigate, the energy level at low frequencies on ultra-long offsets (28 km).

The study also addresses the resolution of one typical Mississippi Canyon survey in the Gulf of Mexico and find that offset is a key for penetration depth, and low frequencies are key for resolution of the model. We conclude that we can design a survey that can be useful for both imaging and velocity model building.