Velocities, time-imaging, and depth-imaging in reflection seismics:
principles and methods
EAGE Publications, Houton, The Netherlands, (2003)Abstract
There are numerous textbooks and publications on seismic processing,
and in particular migration. However, we do not know of any work
giving an overview of the many types of 'velocities' used in Seismics
and how they relate to the different methods involved in the creation
of the seismic image. This text reviews the imaging methods used
in the oil and gas industry today, with a unique emphasis on this
relationship between imaging and velocity. It addresses imaging in
both time and depth domains, spanning the range of complexity from
NMO correction to sophisticated pre-stack migrations. Recent tools,
such as inversion and demigration, and new directions, e.g. accounting
for anisotropy have also been tackled. The work is comprehensively
illustrated with a total of more than 200 figures. The book should
therefore be of interest to students looking for a complete introduction
to seismic imaging techniques and their respective theoretical and
practical merits and limitations. It is equally written to serve
as a reference book for industry professionals, both generalists
and specialists, who wish to revise standard techniques or take a
look at some of the newer developments. In particular, interpreters,
who participate in more and more tasks involving seismic velocities,
will find answers to many of the questions which arise when, for
example, tying seismic images to wells, creating post- and pre-stack
time migration velocity fields, building a velocity model for depth
migration or simply converting maps from time to depth.