Full Waveform Seismic Imaging: Drastically Reducing the Project Lifecycle

Full waveform inversion (FWI) is a well-established tool for velocity model building as part of a conventional seismic processing and imaging workflow. However, recent advances in multi-parameter FWI have shown the technique is able to estimate many parameters, including reflectivity. This FWI imaging approach uses the raw field data as input and requires little to no processing effort. It uses the parts of the wavefield (primaries, multiples and ghosts) that are typically removed from the data during a conventional workflow to generate high-resolution images of the subsurface. The reduction in processing effort means the FWI imaging approach is primarily constrained only by compute and it is therefore possible to generate results in a fraction of the time compared to legacy methods. These higher resolution images generated in a shorter timeframe allow for better decision making and reduce risk.