Exxonmobil Upstream Research Company

Peter Traynin

John E Anderson

Jerome R Krebs

Christine E Krohn

Ramesh Neelamani

Charlie Jing

Thomas A Dickens

David L Hinkley

Anatoly I Baumstein

Carey M Marcinkovich

Sirui Tan

Gboyega Ayeni

Jaewoo Park

Iterative methods for inversion of seismic data to update a physical property model are disclosed. Such methods may comprise iteratively updating the model until a first predetermined resolution is achieved, using full wavefield inversion of the seismic data up to a first frequency threshold and assuming the seismic data is free of attenuation effects; extracting geobodies from the updated model; obtaining a Q model using the geobodies; and updating the physical property model using an inversion process, wherein the Q model is incorporated into the inversion process. These steps may be repeated until a second predetermined resolution of the physical property model is achieved, wherein the first frequency threshold is progressively increased in each repetition. The Q model may be updated with seismic data at all available frequencies to obtain a full-band Q model; and the physical property model may be updated using full-band migration and the full-band Q model.

Accurate velocity model estimation and imaging in the presence of localized attenuation (Q) anomalies

Method for reducing the time needed to perform geophysical inversion by using simultaneous encoded sources in the simulation steps of the inversion process. The geophysical survey data are prepared by encoding () a group of source gathers (), using for each gather a different encoding signature selected from a set () of non-equivalent encoding signatures. Then, the encoded gathers are summed () by summing all traces corresponding to the same receiver from each gather, resulting in a simultaneous encoded gather. (Alternatively, the geophysical data are acquired from simultaneously encoded sources.) The simulation steps needed for inversion are then calculated using a particular assumed velocity (or other physical property) model () and simultaneously activated encoded sources using the same encoding scheme used on the measured data. The result is an updated physical properties model () that may be further updated () by additional iterations.

Iterative inversion of data from simultaneous geophysical sources

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Cypress, TX, United States of America

Peter Traynin