Wave-Equation Wavefront Migration

The wave-equation wavefront migration (WWM) is a potentially efficient form of wave equation migration, where the finite-difference stencil is only applied around the leading portion of the wavefront. WWM has the accuracy of wave-equation migration, fewer aliasing and migration artifacts, and can potentially be much faster than the standard reverse-time migration. The potential drawbacks are the memory intensive operation of storing the Green’s function at each grid point, and that only a few of the earliest arrivals are used in downward imaging condition. In this report, we tested WWM on the 2-D SEG/EAGE salt model, a 2-D line in the Gulf of Mexico, and a 3-D synthetic model. Migration images show that the 2-D wavefront reverse-time migration gives results that are comparable in accuracy to the standard reverse time migration. The preliminary result for 3-D wavefront reverse time migration is encouraging.