Seismic modeling by demigration

Abstract

Kirchhoff‐type, isochron‐stack demigration is the natural asymptotic inverse to classical Kirchhoff or diffraction‐stack migration. Both stacking operations can be performed in true amplitude by an appropriate selection of weight functions. Isochron‐stack demigration is closely related to seismic modeling with the Kirchhoff integral. The principal objective of this paper is to show how demigration can be used to compute synthetic seismograms. The idea is to attach to each reflector in the model an appropriately stretched (i.e., frequency‐shifted) spatial wavelet. Its amplitude is proportional to the reflection coefficient, transforming the original reflector model into an artificially constructed true‐amplitude, depth‐migrated section. The seismic modeling is then realized by a true‐amplitude demigration operation applied to this artificially constructed migrated section. A simple but typical synthetic data example indicates that modeling by demigration yields results superior to conventional zero‐order ray theory or classical Kirchhoff modeling.