Salt model building at Atlantis with full-waveform inversion

Abstract

BP recently acquired wide-offset ocean-bottom-node data with conventional airguns over the Atlantis Field in the deep-water Gulf of Mexico. Careful consideration during the acquisition was rewarded by recording usable signal down to a lower frequency than previously achieved. Full-waveform inversion was then applied to the resulting dataset. The resulting velocity model was then used, unmodified, to reverse time migrate the seismic data. The result was the production of some of the best sub-salt images ever seen at Atlantis. Furthermore, the FWI velocity model clearly revealed several major interpretation errors in the legacy salt model, and thus the FWI result also offered an excellent basis for updating the conventional salt-model-building workflow. These results demonstrated that with appropriate seismic data to support it, FWI might offer a paradigm shift in model building and imaging in areas of complex salt. Presentation Date: Thursday, September 28, 2017 Start Time: 9:45 AM Location: 361F Presentation Type: ORAL