Encoded simultaneous source full‐wavefield inversion for spectrally shaped marine streamer data

Abstract

In this paper, we apply encoded simultaneous source full‐wavefield inversion (FWI) to marine streamer data. FWI of large scale 3D data is a challenging problem, especially constraining the inversion using the high frequencies available in exploration seismic data. Two methodologies that make high‐frequency FWI feasible for field data are: (a) applying encoded simultaneous source full‐wavefield inversion (ESSFWI) and (b) shaping the data to provide a preferential weighting to the low‐frequency components of the data. These two methods in combination provide us with the computational efficiencies needed for large 3D runs. To date, most encoded simultaneous source methods have been applied to fixed‐receiver data; i.e., each receiver records data from all shots in the survey. We developed an approach that enables us to apply ESSFWI to marine streamer data that are non‐fixed spread. The approach uses a normalized cross‐correlation objective function with multiple realizations of the encoded data at each iteration of the nonlinear FWI. The method can be applied to 2D/3D data with any survey geometry. Here we demonstrate the methodology and discuss its details with synthetic examples. Although not presented here our initial investigations on 3D field streamer data look encouraging.