True Amplitudes: A Challenge in Reflection Seismology

Abstract.

Kirchhoff migration is a well-known process in the world of seismic exploration to transform seismic reflection data into an interpretable image of the subsurface. In former times, only kinematic traveltime information were utilized to image interfaces within the earth. That means, the dynamic information related to the recorded amplitudes remained unused. During the last decades, migration concepts have strongly improved and make nowadays additional use of these dynamic information to obtain knowledge about petrophysical rock properties. By applying suitable weight functions in the migration process the geometrical spreading effects of propagating waves can be compensated. Such an approach is called “true-amplitude migration”. In this way, the output amplitudes are related to the reflection coefficient. As a consequence, detailed amplitude versus offset (AVO) or angle (AVA) analysis may be performed and, thus, the search for, e.g., reservoirs is improved.