Challenges in reverse‐time migration

Abstract

As a wave equation technique using two‐way hyperbolic wave equation, reverse‐time migration can handle not only multi‐arrivals but steep dips and overturned reflections also. For velocity modeling of complex geometry, reverse‐time migration is a quite attractive tool because of its capabilities of accurate imaging of salt flank and validation of built velocity model using wave equation forward modeling. Rapid development of computer hardware enables reverse‐time migration to be widely applied to production imaging problems. In this paper, we present several challenges to remove artifacts in reverse‐time migration.