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Conclusions

This paper discusses an inline delayed-shot migration technique in tilted elliptical-cylindrical coordinates. I argue that migration approach, relative to the full 3D plane-wave technique, offers both lower memory requirements (due to small migration aperture), as well as a potential reduction in the number of total migrations needed (by migrating fewer sail lines than crossline plane waves). I demonstrate that the impulse response of inline-source delayed-shot wavefields are well-matched to TEC geometry, and that corresponding extrapolation wavenumber is no more complicated than that of elliptically anisotropic media. This leads to an accurate 3D finite-difference splitting algorithm that both accurately propagates wavefields and handles the associated numerical anisotropy. The 3D synthetic Gulf of Mexico data tests demonstrate the migration technique's ability to generate improved images of steeply dipping structure, relative to Cartesian coordinate migration, at reduced computational cost. Field data tests illustrate the utility of the 3D migration approach in exploration practice.
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Next: Acknowledgments Up: Shragge: 3D imaging in Previous: Narrow-azimuth field data test

2009-05-05