Full-waveform inversion by model extension: Practical applications

Producing reliable acoustic subsurface velocity models still remains the main bottleneck of oil and gas industry’s traditional imaging sequence. In complex geologic settings, output conventional ray-based or wave-equation-based tomographic methods may not be sufficiently accurate for full-waveform inversion (FWI) to converge a geologically satisfactory earth model. We create new method referred as by model extension (FWIME) in which wave-equation migration analysis (WEMVA) technique is efficiently paired with modified version FWI. find that our more powerful than applying WEMVA FWI sequentially, it can solutions without use good initial guess low-frequency energy. determine FWIME’s potential on five realistic challenging numerical examples simulate scenarios often encountered hydrocarbon exploration. guide reader step throughout optimization process. simultaneously invert all wave types same simple mechanism need user-intensive hyperparameter tuning an open-source online repository, we provide C++/compute unified device architecture (CUDA) implementation accelerated graphics processing units, encapsulated Python interface. All developed are accessible through notebooks fully reproducible.