Migration and inversion of seismic data

Abstract

Seismic migration and inversion describe a class of closely related processes sharing common objectives and underlying physical principles. These processes range in complexity from the simple NMO‐stack to the complex, iterative, multidimensional, prestack, nonlinear inversion used in the elastic seismic case. By making use of amplitudes versus offset, it is, in principle, possible to determine the three elastic parameters from compressional data. NMO‐stack can be modified to solve for these parameters, as can prestack migration. Linearized, wave‐equation inversion does not inordinately increase the complexity of data processing. The principal part of a migration‐inversion algorithm is the migration. Practical difficulties are considerable, including both correctable and intrinsic limitations in data quality, limitations in current algorithms (which we hope are correctable), and correctable (or perhaps intrinsic) limitations in computer power.