2D High-Resolution Crosswell Seismic Traveltime Tomography

Abstract

This paper presents a method for combining the hybrid eikonal solver and the prior velocity information to obtain high-resolution crosswell imaging. The hybrid eikonal solver in this technique can ensure rapid and reliable forward modeling of traveltime field in an unsmoothed velocity model. We also utilize the sonic well logging curve to properly develop an initial reference velocity model, and use the sonic well logging data as the prior information for the inversion part, which can restrict the problem of non-uniqueness. The results of the numerical experiment of traveltime in multi-layer media showed that the hybrid eikonal solver was more accurate than the finite difference method. The case study of an oil field in eastern China demonstrated that our method can derive a high-resolution reconstruction of the subsurface structure by inverting the primary traveltime datasets. These results suggest that even though the eikonal equation is a high frequency approximation to the wavefield, the hybrid eikonal solver can provide an accurate traveltime field in the forward modelling step of seismic crosswell tomography, which is critical to ensure high-resolution invert imaging in a highly heterogeneous environment.