Q-model building using one-way wave-equation migration Q analysis — Part 1: Theory and synthetic test

Abstract

The goal of this study is to understand and quantify the attenuation effects in the subsurface and to create an accurate laterally and vertically varying quality factor [Formula: see text] model for gas clouds/pockets. Such [Formula: see text] models are used in seismic migration to improve image quality. We evaluate an inversion-based method, wave-equation migration [Formula: see text] analysis, with two major features. First, this method is performed in the image space to reduce noise, focus events, and provide a direct link between [Formula: see text] model perturbations and image perturbations. Second, this method uses wave-equation-based [Formula: see text] tomography to handle the complex wave propagation. We apply this method to three 2D synthetic examples. The numerical synthetic tests of this [Formula: see text] estimation method demonstrate its feasibility on characterizing [Formula: see text] anomalies and, as a consequence, improving the seismic image.