Subsalt event regularization with steering filters

Marie L. Prucha and Biondo L. Biondi

marie@sep.Stanford.EDU, biondo@sep.Stanford.EDU

ABSTRACT

The difficulties of imaging beneath salt bodies where illumination is poor are well known. In this paper, we present an angle-domain least-squares inversion scheme that regularizes the seismic image, tending to smooth along specified dips. This smoothing is accomplished using steering filters. We show the results of using the regularized inversion with smoothing along the angle axis and along both the angle and common midpoint axes. Additionally, the ramifications of specifying incorrect dips to smooth along will be examined. The results show that this regularized least-squares inversion does produce a cleaner, more continuous result under salt bodies. The inversion will reject incorrectly chosen dips used for the regularization.