Method of, and apparatus for, full waveform inversion

Abstract

A method of subsurface exploration includes generating a representation of a portional volume of the Earth from a seismic measurement of a physical parameter. The method includes providing observed seismic dataset having three distinct nonzero data values derived from three distinct nonzero seismic measured values of said portional volume of the Earth, generating a predicted seismic dataset having three distinct nonzero data values, generating a nontrivial convolutional filter including three nonzero filter coefficients, generating a convolved observed dataset by convolving the convolutional filter with said observed seismic dataset, generating primary objective functions to measure the similarity between said convolved observed dataset and said predicted dataset, maximizing and/or minimizing said primary objective functions by modifying at least one filter coefficient of the convolutional filter, generating predetermined reference filters having at least three reference coefficients generating secondary objective functions to measure the similarity between filter coefficients for the nontrivial filter and reference coefficients for the predetermined reference filters, and minimizing and/or maximizing said secondary objective functions by modifying a model coefficient of a subsurface model of a portion of the Earth to produce an updated subsurface model of a portion of the Earth.