Compensation of Absorption Effects in Seismic Data

TL;DR

This paper discusses methods to correct for absorption effects in seismic data, particularly using inverse Q filtering and migration techniques, to improve seismic image resolution affected by energy dissipation and waveform distortion.

Contribution

It introduces a migration-based approach to inverse Q filtering for seismic absorption correction and derives a non-linear wave equation incorporating absorption effects.

Findings

Enhanced seismic imaging resolution through absorption correction

Development of a migration-type inverse Q filtering method

Modeling of seismic wave propagation with absorption effects

Abstract

The frequency content of seismic data is changing with propagation depth due to intrinsic absorption. This implies that the higher frequencies are highly attenuated, thus leading to a loss in resolution of the seismic image. In addition, absorption anomalies, for example, caused by gas sands, will further dim the seismic reconstruction. It is possible to correct for such absorption effects by employing so called inverse Q filtering (IQF). This is a filtering technique that tries to restore the loss of the higher frequencies due to propagation. Newer developments within IQF can be regarded as a migration type of algorithm, and such classes of techniques are studied in this paper. As seismic waves travel through the earth, the visco-elasticity of the earth's medium will cause energy dissipation and waveform distortion. This phenomenon is referred to as seismic absorption. In explaining the propagation of seismic wave in a given medium we explore the relationship between the pressure and displacement stresses. Therefore, by introducing an absorption function into the stress and strain relationship we derived a non-linear wave equation. We, then, employed a layered earth model to solve the non-linear wave equation.