ARTICLE

Diffraction imaging using specularity gathers

I. STURZU1 A.M. POPOVICI1 T.J. MOSER2
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1 Z-Terra Inc., 17171 Park Row, Houston, TX 77084, U.S.A. isturzu@z-terra.com,
2 Moser Geophysical Services, van Ikenadelaan 550A, 2597 AV The Hague, The Netherlands.,
JSE 2014, 23(1), 1–18;
Submitted: 9 June 2025 | Revised: 9 June 2025 | Accepted: 9 June 2025 | Published: 9 June 2025
© 2025 by the Authors. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC-by the license) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )
Abstract

Sturzu, I., Popovici, A.M. and Moser, T.J., 2014. Diffraction imaging using specularity gathers. Journal of Seismic Exploration, 23: 1-18. The separate imaging of subsurface diffractors is a key ingredient in the development of high-resolution imaging technologies. We here produce images of diffractors using depth migration algorithms modified to attenuate the energy from specular reflectors. The seismic events from a pre-stack seismic dataset are migrated to proper depth and location using the final velocity model obtained by the velocity model building process, but the output is assigned to separate bins according to the value of a specific parameter called specularity. The specularity gathers are post-processed using a plane wave destructor filter to attenuate the contribution coming from specular reflectors. The method is demonstrated on two synthetic models and on a field data target in the Teapot Dome reservoir.

Keywords
seismic migration
diffraction imaging
high-resolution imaging
plane wave destructor
common image gather
specularity gather
References
  1. multiple-reverberation effects make the stratigraphic interpretation of the images
  2. difficult and unreliable. Decreasing the wavelength of the seismic waves
  3. reflected at the target is nearly impossible because of the dissipative nature of
  4. the overburden that attenuates the high-frequencies in the seismic wave-field.
  5. Furthermore, the high frequencies that are present in the data are often lost
  6. during standard processing. High-resolution imaging is of value, for instance to
  7. enable identification of small scale faults and to locate formation pinch-outs.
  8. Standard approaches to obtain high-resolution information, such as coherency
  9. analysis and structure-oriented filters, derive attributes from stacked, migrated
  10. images. In comparison, diffraction imaging can act directly on the pre-stack
  11. data, and has the potential to focus and image super-resolution structural
  12. information as a consequence of the redundancy present in the pre-stack data.
  13. THEORY AND METHOD
  14. Diffractions are the seismic response of small elements (or diffractors) in
  15. the subsurface of the earth, such as small scale faults, near surface scattering
  16. objects, and, in general, all objects which are smaller than the seismic
  17. wavelength. Diffraction imaging uses diffractions to focus and image the
  18. structural elements that produced those diffraction events. Since diffractors are,
  19. by definition, smaller than the wavelength of seismic waves, diffraction imaging
  20. has the potential of providing super-resolution information, to image details that
  21. are beyond the classical Rayleigh limit of half a seismic wavelength. The
  22. importance of diffractions in high-resolution structural imaging has been
  23. emphasized in many recent publications (Shtivelman and Keydar, 2004;
  24. Khaidukov et al., 2004; Taner et al., 2006; Fomel et al., 2006; Moser and
  25. Howard, 2008; Moser, 2009; Klokov et al., 2010; Klokov et al., 2011; Dell
  26. and Gajewski, 2011; Koren and Ravve, 2011; Klokov and Fomel, 2012). Still,
  27. diffraction imaging is not widely used tool. In fact, most algorithms that are
  28. used to process seismic data explicitly enhance reflections and implicitly
  29. suppress diffracted energy. The goal of diffraction imaging is not to replace
  30. these traditional algorithms, but rather to provide an additional 3-D or 4-D
  31. volume containing information about diffractors that would be able to fill in the
  32. small, but potentially crucial, structural details.
  33. DIFFRACTION IMAGING 3
  34. A true diffraction image is not optimally obtained by post-processing a
  35. traditional seismic image even if the seismic image is obtained by an algorithm
  36. that does not suppress diffractions. While diffractors will appear in the image,
  37. usually in the form of discontinuities, they have much lower amplitudes than
  38. reflecting structures. On the other hand, by imaging diffractors using the
  39. pre-stack data, the diffractor amplitude can be enhanced while the specular
  40. reflections can be attenuated. Furthermore, apparent discontinuities in the
  41. seismic image can have a variety of causes other than diffractions, including
  42. small errors in the velocity model of the earth that was used to obtain the image,
  43. so the post-stack/post-processing approach would not be able to discriminate
  44. between discontinuities coming from diffractions and those coming from
  45. processing errors.
  46. Techniques for diffraction imaging fall into two categories. In the first
  47. category are methods that separate the seismic data into two parts, one that
  48. contains the wave energy from reflections (specular energy) and the other that
  49. contains the wave energy from diffractions. Each component is used to provide
  50. an image through traditional seismic imaging methods. In the second category
  51. are methods that do not separate the input seismic data, but rather performs
  52. filtering during migration. Moser and Howard (2008) and Moser (2009)
  53. extracted the local direction of specularity from a previously obtained migration
  54. stack, and used this information during a subsequent migration step in order to
  55. filter the events that satisfied (to a given degree) Snell’s law. Koren and Ravve
  56. (2011) pre-computed a directivity-dependent specularity attribute using
  57. information from the velocity model and the acquisition geometry and used
  58. angle domain gathers in order to suppress the specularity energy associated with
  59. horizontal events in the angle domain gathers. In this paper we follow the
  60. approach from Moser and Howard (2008). The parameters governing the
  61. specularity filtering are rather arbitrary, if no further investigation is implied.
  62. Sturzu et al. (2013) introduced a new concept - specularity gathers - that proved
  63. to be very useful in the design of proper parameters for the specularity filter.
  64. Below we show how we can selectively filter the specular energy within
  65. specularity gathers to obtain the diffraction images after stacking along the
  66. specularity dimension.
  67. In Kirchhoff migration, energy is propagated to all possible reflection
  68. points in the model space. After all events on all traces are propagated, an
  69. image is generated by stacking (summing) all individual contributions. The
  70. propagation of the events usually uses Green’s functions computed in the form
  71. of travel-time tables (the time of propagation from the source defined by the
  72. trace to the image point and further to the receiver defined by the trace.)
  73. Stacking reinforces in-phase energy corresponding to true reflectors and cancels
  74. out-of-phase energy that does not correspond to a true reflector. A conventional
  75. Kirchhoff migration forms a seismic image as:
  76. 4 STURZU, POPOVICI & MOSER
  77. V(x) = ) dtdsdrU'(t,s,r)é6[t 一 T(s,x,r)] , (1)
  78. where 6 is the Dirac delta function, U'(t,s,r) the (second time derivative)
  79. pre-stack data, depending on time t and shot/receiver positions s/r, T(s,x,r) is
  80. the travel time from s to r via the subsurface image point x, computed by ray
  81. tracing in a given reference velocity model, and V(x) the resulting migrated
  82. image. The sum is carried out over the time samples and all source and receiver
  83. pairs (s.r), in the seismic data.
  84. In the earth’s subsurface the local discontinuities (reflectors) can be
  85. modeled either as surfaces, edges, or isolated tips or points. For a smooth
  86. surface reflector, the corresponding part of the image is a locally continuous,
  87. planar surface that generates specular events, meaning that they strictly obey
  88. Snell’s law. Events backscattered from all other types of discontinuities are
  89. diffractive and do not obey Snell’s law. Diffraction imaging attenuates the
  90. contribution of specular events in a migrated image.
  91. In the final image stack, a specular element can be approximated locally
  92. as a planar surface, while the isochrone surfaces (computed using the travel-time
  93. tables) should be tangent to the planar surfaces corresponding to the specular
  94. elements, as a direct consequence of Snell’s law. For diffractive events,
  95. however, there is no such constraint. For a given trace in the data and a point
  96. in the image (1), we define the specularity in terms of the specularity angle,
  97. defined by the normal to a locally planar structure (dominant at that image
  98. point) and the direction of the gradient of the total travel-time from the source
  99. to the receiver via the image point. We choose the absolute value of the cosine
  100. of the specularity angle as the actual value of specularity.. This can be expressed
  101. mathematically as:
  102. S(.xr) = [wT |/|T I, Q)
  103. where T, denotes the gradient of T(s,x,r)with respect to x, and n is the unit
  104. vector normal to the reflector surface, also depending on x, and the dot denotes
  105. the scalar product. If x is located on a strong reflector, the value of the
  106. specularity should be equal to unity, S = 1, because the two rays (coming from
  107. the source and that going toward the receiver) then obey Snell’s Law with
  108. respect to the normal to the reflector n, so the angle bisector of the two rays is
  109. aligned with the normal to the surface. In diffraction imaging framework, this
  110. is a pure specular reflection that has to be attenuated. If the angle bisector of the
  111. rays and the normal to the surface are not perfectly aligned, S < 1 and the
  112. energy is non-specularly scattered.
  113. The concept of pure specularity as defined above has to be amended using
  114. the concept of the Fresnel zone, which is a frequency-dependent volume around
  115. DIFFRACTION IMAGING 5
  116. the ray within which most of the wave energy is interfering constructively and
  117. can be treated as a single arrival wave. All the points from a Fresnel zone have
  118. to be considered together, even if they have slightly sub-unitary values for
  119. specularity. That is why pure specularity has to be defined by a frequency-
  120. dependent interval close to unity. In Fig. 1, we illustrate this situation by
  121. comparing a pure specular reflection with a pure diffraction. The Fresnel zones
  122. are depicted by hatched areas.
  123. Fig. 1. Comparison between a pure specular reflection and a pure diffraction case. The Fresnel zone
  124. for the reflection are depicted by the hatched areas.
  125. A straightforward procedure for obtaining a diffraction image is outlined
  126. in Moser and Howard (2008) and Moser (2009). First, using pre-stack Kirchhoff
  127. migration, we obtain the seismic image; this image will include both reflections
  128. and diffractions, but the reflections dominate the image. The second step is to
  129. analyze the structures in the Kirchhoff image and determine the normal vector
  130. to these structures at each image point. Using a migration stack to obtain this
  131. information, rather than to extract it from the final velocity model, is critical in
  132. cases when the stratigraphic non-conformity is important (Moser, 2009). The
  133. second step has to be performed on an optimally focused image, obtained using
  134. the best velocity model, so that the information extracted is related to the
  135. geological geometry of the undersurface. In a subsequent migration run, the
  136. migrated seismic events are stacked using a weight designed in order to
  137. attenuate the contribution of the specular events (specularity value close to 1).
  138. 6 STURZU, POPOVICI & MOSER
  139. An important challenge comes from the fact that there is no a priori
  140. procedure to define the limits of the pure specularity region as a function of
  141. specularity itself, so one cannot design a proper weighting function before the
  142. last migration run. A simple trial-and-error method can be too computationally
  143. demanding. Specularity gathers, a novel technique introduced in Sturzu et al.
  144. (2013) can be used to increase the efficiency and accuracy of the diffraction
  145. imaging technique. A specularity gather is similar to an offset or angle common
  146. image gather, in which the migrated seismic events are separated according to
  147. the value of specularity rather than of the offset or, respectively, reflection
  148. angle. The events are migrated to the proper depth and are partially stacked
  149. according to the specularity values in pre-defined specularity bins. The
  150. specularity gather can be formally written as:
  151. V,.(x,8) = J dtdsdrU'(t,s,r)6[t — T(s,x,n)]6(S — |n-T,|/T,|]) . @)
  152. In a post-processing technique similar to the muting of the offset gathers,
  153. the diffraction image can be obtained after a weighted stack over all the
  154. specularity values:
  155. Vux) = J dSwix,S)V, (8) . 4)
  156. The use of specularity gathers has the advantage that the weighting
  157. function is designed after migration and therefore is constructed, and updated,
  158. very efficiently. In particular, the weighting function can be spatially variable
  159. [w = w(x,S)] and adapted to the local Fresnel zone width, which is difficult to
  160. estimate a priori, but becomes feasible using specularity gathers. Also, feedback
  161. from interpretation can be easily included in the weighting function, and hence
  162. in the final diffraction image.
  163. As shown in Sturzu et al. (2013), for a correct velocity model and in the
  164. ideal infinite-frequency limit, a specular reflection event appears in the
  165. specularity gathers as a focused spot on the S=1-axis. Point diffractions appear
  166. as flat events extending over 0 < S < 1. Edge diffractions in three dimensions
  167. appear as dipping events, as they obey Snell’s law only along the edge, but not
  168. transversely to it (Moser, 2011). For finite bandwidth seismic responses, the
  169. situation is slightly different. Specular reflections also appear as dipping events,
  170. as the non-specular part of reflected energy outside the Fresnel zone is not
  171. related to the shortest reflection path following Fermat’s principle.
  172. In a Common Image Point section of the specularity gather, the image is
  173. obtained from different portions of the isochrones of different traces. For
  174. example, in the case of a horizontal flat reflector with a constant velocity
  175. DIFFRACTION IMAGING 7
  176. overburden, the isochrones are ellipses. The specularity angle in each point of
  177. the ellipse is monotonically changing from zero below the Common Image Point
  178. to 90 degrees at zero depth. In a Common Image Point section of the specularity
  179. gather, the bin for the maximum specularity (specularity angle close to zero) is
  180. formed by pieces of the ellipses corresponding to maximum depth. Here, traces
  181. with any offset should contribute. The very next specularity bin (in the same
  182. Common Image Point section) is formed by the contributions of the traces with
  183. neighboring mid-points, but having the right offset to yield the designed value
  184. of the specularity. The location of the events should be shallower than the
  185. location of the event in the previous bin. This interpretation pattern can be
  186. applied to subsequent specularity bins, ending with the bin for zero specularity,
  187. which has to have contributions only at zero depth, but from all traces.
  188. Fig. 2 shows migration results for the case of a horizontal flat reflector
  189. with a constant velocity overburden. The sub-figures depict: (a) a Common
  190. Image Point (or vertical) section from the specularity gather (a partial image
  191. obtained for a given vertical in the image space and all values of the
  192. specularity), (b) the final stack over all values of specularity, equivalent to the
  193. standard migrated image, and, in each of panels (c), (d) and (e) a specularity
  194. section (a partial image obtained for a given value of the specularity for all
  195. points in the image space) for S = 1.0, S = 0.9 and S = 0.8, respectively.
  196. Sub-Figs. 2(d) and 2(e) contain out of Fresnel zone ghosts for the main specular
  197. event depicted in sub-Figs. 2(b) and 2(c). Remarkably, stacking over all values
  198. of specularity is able to fully cancel the contribution of all the ghosts in the final
  199. Horizontal rane an
  200. Fig. 2. Migration results for a horizontal flat reflector with a constant velocity overburden: (a) the
  201. specularity gather for the horizontal position at x = 1250 m; (b) The stack over all values of
  202. specularity, equivalent to a standard migrated image; (c) specularity section for S = 1.0; (d)
  203. specularity section for S = 0.9; (e) specularity section for S = 0.8.
  204. Depth [m]
  205. 8 STURZU, POPOVICI & MOSER
  206. stack (b). Fig. 3 show similar results for a point diffractor in a constant velocity
  207. medium. In the left panels is displayed the migration image, obtained by
  208. stacking along all specularity values in the specularity gather. The specularity
  209. gather in the exact location of the point diffractor is a flat horizontal event
  210. (sub-figure 3(a) central panel); when moving slightly away from this point, the
  211. horizontal event splits into two (sub-Fig. 3(b) central panel). The right panels
  212. show two specularity sections, for S = 1.0 in sub-Fig. 3(a) and for S = 0.8 in
  213. sub-Fig. 3(b).
  214. Horizontal position [m] Specularity Horizontal position [m]
  215. 500 100015002000 0s 1.0 500 100015002000
  216. 500 os 10 500
  217. Fig. 3. Migration results for a point diffractor in a constant velocity medium. Each panel displays
  218. from left to right: the final stack, the specularity gather for a given horizontal position, x, and a
  219. specularity section for given value of specularity, S. The horizontal location of the diffractor is at
  220. 1250 m. (a) x= 1250 m, S = 1.0 (b) x = 1150 m, S = 0.8.
  221. a)
  222. Depth fm1
  223. b)
  224. Depth [m]
  225. DIFFRACTION IMAGING 9
  226. Displaying common-image specularity gathers (vertical sections) may
  227. become cumbersome when dealing with more complicated data. Fortunately,
  228. using a common-depth display, i.e., showing sections along one of the
  229. horizontal lines (corresponding to depth in the common-image gather) versus
  230. specularity on the vertical axis is able to give a clearer image, especially for
  231. cases with small lateral variations. For these cases, in the Common-Depth
  232. Specularity Gathers (horizontal sections), the specular reflections are almost
  233. horizontal events. An important issue is that in this display one can identify (out
  234. of Fresnel zone-) ghosts of the specular events coming from deeper locations,
  235. which are also almost horizontal. In this way, we can filter these ghosts together
  236. with their primaries.
  237. A workflow for diffraction imaging using common-depth specularity
  238. gathers consists of:
  239. I Standard pre-stack depth migration using formula (1) and associated
  240. migration velocity analysis to obtain an optimally focused full-wave image
  241. V(x);
  242. II. Extraction of the unit vector normal to the reflector surface using V(x) in
  243. each point;
  244. Ill. Migrating using eq. (3) to obtain a specularity gather;
  245. IV. Filtering the specular energy from the specularity gather;
  246. V. Stacking over specularity dimension to obtain a diffraction image [eq.
  247. (4)].
  248. NUMERICAL RESULTS
  249. The numerical results are obtained using the procedure outlined above
  250. [eqs. (1)-(4)]. The filtering step IV can be done using any procedure able to
  251. detect and attenuate laterally continuous seismic events. Here we used one of
  252. them, the Plane Wave Destruction Filter (PWD) (Fomel, 2002). Before applying
  253. the filter, we compute the dips in each section of the Common-Depth
  254. Specularity Gather. Then, in each point from the gather, the filter is performing
  255. a weighted stack along the dip in order to attenuate the seismic event from a
  256. given vertical window, if a similar event is found along the dip. The first
  257. numerical example has been designed for a proof of concept (Fig. 4) and
  258. illustrates the functionality of specularity gathers on a simple diffraction ramp
  259. model: a horizontal reflector at 900 m of depth, and a double ramp with the
  260. base at 1400 m, as depicted in the perfect migration stack shown in the panel
  261. (a) from Fig. 4. The synthetic data are generated using ray-Born approximation,
  262. 10 STURZU, POPOVICI & MOSER
  263. a method proved to be very useful in forward modeling diffracted waves
  264. (Moser, 2012). After pre-stack migration, the unit vector normal to the
  265. reflectors in the final stack (a) was computed and used to generate a specularity
  266. gather [eq. (3)] in a subsequent migration run. The Common-Depth Specularity
  267. Horizontal position [m] Horizontal position [m]
  268. (b)
  269. o
  270. Depth{m]
  271. S
  272. Specularity
  273. 0 0.0 Os 10
  274. =
  275. =
  276. Specularity
  277. Os
  278. 0 0.0
  279. (h)
  280. &
  281. Specularity
  282. 0s
  283. 0
  284. Fig. 4. Diffraction ramp model: (a) Pre-stack migration image obtained by stacking over the values
  285. of specularity in the specularity gather. (b) Diffraction image obtained by stacking over specularity
  286. of the Plane Wave Destructor (PWD) filtered specularity gather. (c) Section of the specularity gather
  287. in common-depth display for 1400 m of depth. (d) Section of the specularity gather in common-depth
  288. display filtered with PWD for 1400 m of depth. (e) Section of the specularity gather in
  289. common-depth display for 1140 m of depth. (f) Section of the specularity gather in common-depth
  290. display filtered with PWD for 1140 m of depth. (g) Section of the specularity gather in
  291. common-depth display for 900 m of depth. (h) Section of the specularity gather in common-depth
  292. display filtered with PWD for 900 m of depth.
  293. DIFFRACTION IMAGING 1
  294. Gather of Fig. 4c shows two horizontal events close to S = 1 coming from the
  295. specular reflections shown in the stack from Fig. 4a at 1400 m depth, while for
  296. the diffractive events from the same depth at 750 m, 1500 m, and 2250 m along
  297. the line, there are clearly defined peaks. Close to the central peak, we notice
  298. also two dipping events from the specular reflections close to the edge of the
  299. double-ramp. After applying the Plane Wave Destruction Filter the specular
  300. energy is attenuated, and the result showing three diffraction peaks is displayed
  301. in Fig. 4d. The specularity gather of Fig. 4e does not have horizontal events,
  302. but displays, close to S = 1, dipping events corresponding to the specular
  303. reflections at the top end of the ramps, visible in the stack from Fig. 4a at 1140
  304. m in depth. For the diffractive events from the same depth at 750 m and 2250
  305. m along the line, there are clearly defined peaks. In Fig. 4f is displayed the
  306. result of applying the Plane Wave Destruction Filter on the section from Fig.
  307. 4e: the specular energy is almost completely attenuated and two diffraction
  308. peaks are visible. The specularity gather of Fig. 4g shows a horizontal event
  309. close to S = 1 coming from the specular reflections shown in the stack from
  310. Fig. 4a at 900 m in depth, and two ghost dipping events coming from the
  311. specular reflections on the ramps. After filtering with the Plane Wave
  312. Destruction Filter, we obtain almost no energy - except for two very weak peaks
  313. at the survey’s edges - as displayed in Fig. 4(h). Stacking the filtered specularity
  314. gathers over the values of specularity gives the diffraction image shown in Fig.
  315. 4(b). Almost all of the specular energy was attenuated in the final image leaving
  316. just the five points of discontinuity in the model.
  317. Horizontal position [m] Specularity
  318. 4000 8000 12 000 0.0 0.5 1.0
  319. (a) 8
  320. (b)
  321. Specularity
  322. Depth [m]
  323. Fig. 5. Mare di Cassis model: (a) Specularity gather in common-depth display (horizontal section)
  324. for 2100 m. (b) Specularity gather in common-image display (vertical section) for the horizontal
  325. position x = 4880 m.
  326. 12 STURZU, POPOVICI & MOSER
  327. The second example is the Mare di Cassis data set, which is described in
  328. Moser and Howard (2008). After regular pre-stack migration, the unit vector
  329. normal to the reflectors in the final stack was computed and used to generate a
  330. specularity gather in a subsequent migration run. Fig. 5 displays a comparison
  331. between a Common Depth Specularity Gather (horizontal section) on the left,
  332. and a vertical section from the specularity gather on the right. Visually it is
  333. clear that the first one displays more information: the specular reflections are
  334. identified as laterally continuous events, the out-of-Fresnel zone ghosts are
  335. identified as similar events at smaller values of specularity, while diffractions
  336. are identified by the numerous peaks. In the vertical display the diffractions are
  337. identified by the horizontal peaks, while specular reflections by dipping events
  338. that tend to align toward the zero-specularity point from the surface. The
  339. specularity gathers were tapered along the specularity axis, and the plane
  340. wave-destructor filter was applied in the common depth sections of the gather.
  341. Horizontal position [m]
  342. 6 000 8 000 10 000 12 000
  343. (a) 8
  344. Specularity
  345. (b)
  346. Specularity
  347. Fig. 6. Mare di Cassis model: (a) Common-Depth Specularity Gather for 1310 m. (b) PWD filtered
  348. Common-Depth Specularity Gather for 1310 m.
  349. DIFFRACTION IMAGING 13
  350. In Figs. 6, 7, and 8, the result of applying the plane wave-destructor filter
  351. on a common depth specularity gather is shown respectively for three values of
  352. depth. Almost all the specular energy is attenuated, except for regions close to
  353. S=1 where the dip calculation is affected by either multiple dips concurrently
  354. in the same image point or by vertical dips; consequently, the plane
  355. wave-destructor filter is not able to clean all the specular energy. Fig. 9 displays
  356. in panel (a) the standard migrated image, in panel (b) the diffraction image
  357. obtained by stacking over specularities smaller than 0.97 of the plane
  358. wave-destructor filtered specularity gather, and - for reference - in panel (c), the
  359. diffraction image obtained using a cubic taper to filter out all the events from
  360. the specularity gather corresponding to values of specularity larger than 0.92
  361. (Sturzu et al., 2013). A visual comparison shows that the current procedure
  362. gives better results than that obtained using the uniform taper.
  363. Horizontal position [m]
  364. 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10 000 12 000
  365. Fig. 7. Mare di Cassis model: (a) Common-Depth Specularity Gather for 1960 m. (b) PWD filtered
  366. Common-Depth Specularity Gather for 1960 m.
  367. 14 STURZU, POPOVICI & MOSER
  368. Horizontal position [m]
  369. 6 000 8000 10 000
  370. Specularity
  371. (b)
  372. Speculerity
  373. Fig. 8. Mare di Cassis model: (a) Common-Depth Specularity Gather for 2080 m. (b) PWD filtered
  374. Common-Depth Specularity Gather for 2080 m.
  375. The third example contains a field dataset from Teapot Dome (Powder
  376. River Basin, Wyoming). Here, diffraction imaging has been carried out using
  377. the same steps as above, but in the framework of a full 3D depth imaging
  378. process. Figs. 10 and 11 show the results for a region that contains the target
  379. known as the Tensleep formation. In Fig. 10 we focus on the crossline 118 of
  380. the survey: panel (a) is the standard migration result (the top of the Tensleep
  381. formation is depicted in the figure), while panel (c) displays corresponding
  382. section from the diffraction image. The vertical section of the specularity gather
  383. at the location given by the vertical thin white line on the stack is shown in Fig.
  384. 10b, while the corresponding section from the plane wave-destructor filtered
  385. specularity gather is displayed in Fig. 10d. The filtering procedure was applied
  386. in each horizontal section (common depth specularity gather) separately, so Fig.
  387. 10d was not obtained by applying directly the plane wave-destructor in the
  388. vertical section.
  389. DIFFRACTION IMAGING 15
  390. Horizontal position [m]
  391. a 4000 6 000 8 000 12 000
  392. 10 000
  393. Depth [m]
  394. (b)
  395. Depth [m]
  396. (c)
  397. Depth [m]
  398. Fig. 9. Mare di Cassis model: (a) Standard migrated image; (b) Diffraction image obtained by
  399. stacking over specularity of the PWD filtered specularity gather; (c) Diffraction image obtained using
  400. a uniform taper filter above S = 0.92.
  401. 16 STURZU, POPOVICI & MOSER
  402. In Fig. 11, we focus on a depth section at 2020 m (depicted in Fig. 10a with a
  403. thin white horizontal line). Fig. 11a displays the depth section through the
  404. standard migration result, while in Fig. 11b is shown the corresponding depth
  405. section in the diffraction image. The common depth specularity gather for the
  406. crossline 118 at the same depth is shown in Fig. 11c, while the corresponding
  407. result filtered with plane wave-destructor method is depicted in Fig. 11d. In this
  408. case, due to the 3D geometry, the diffraction peaks from the specularity gather
  409. are not as clear as in the synthetic examples. However, applying the procedure
  410. described above is able to delineate in the migrated image (Fig. 11b)
  411. high-resolution diffractive elements related to the transition between different
  412. stratigraphic formations.
  413. (a) (b)
  414. 0 200
  415. 000
  416. 1600 2 400
  417. N
  418. (©) (d)
  419. Fig. 10. Teapot Dome dataset, crossline 118: (a) Standard migrated image; (b) Vertical section of
  420. the specularity gather at inline 138; (c) Diffraction image; (d) Vertical section of the specularity
  421. gather at inline 138 filtered with PWD.
  422. CONCLUSIONS
  423. Specularity gather analysis proves to be a very useful instrument in
  424. obtaining and/or optimizing diffraction images. The energy corresponding to
  425. higher values of specularity can be attenuated by using tapers (uniform or based
  426. on interpretation input). An automatic algorithm can be alternatively constructed
  427. by using a filter, such as plane-wave-destructor, to attenuate the specular energy
  428. at any location in the specularity gather. Further development of this method
  429. will help in advancing diffraction imaging technology.
  430. DIFFRACTION IMAGING 17
  431. (b)
  432. Crosslines
  433. 0 150 100 50
  434. Specularity
  435. 5
  436. 加 — 全
  437. Fig. 11. Teapot Dome dataset, depth section at 2020 m: (a) Standard migrated image; (b) Diffraction
  438. image; (c) Common-Depth Specularity Gather, display at crossline 118; (d) Common-Depth
  439. Specularity Gather filtered with PWD, displayed at crossline 118.
  440. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
  441. We thank Rocky Mountain Oilfield Testing Center and the U.S.
  442. Department of Energy for providing the Teapot Dome dataset, and Opera (Pau)
  443. for providing the Mare di Cassis dataset. Special thanks are due to our
  444. anonymous reviewer, for comments that greatly improved the manuscript.
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Journal of Seismic Exploration, Electronic ISSN: 0963-0651 Print ISSN: 0963-0651, Published by AccScience Publishing