Angle-domain common image gathers by wave-equation migration

Marie L. Prucha, Biondo L. Biondi, and William W. Symes

marie@sep.stanford.edu, biondo@sep.stanford.edu, symes@sep.stanford.edu

ABSTRACT

Shot- and offset-domain common image gathers encounter problems in complex media. They can place events that come from different points in the subsurface at one subsurface location based on identical arrival times and horizontal slownesses. Angle-domain common image gathers uniquely define ray couples for each point in the subsurface, therefore each event in the data will be associated with only one subsurface location. It is possible to generate angle-domain common image gathers with wave-equation migration methods and these angle-domain common image gathers may be used for velocity analysis and amplitude-versus-angle analysis. Applications of these methods to the Marmousi model are promising.