Gabor depth imaging with topography

Yongwang Ma, Gary F. Margrave

Seismic depth imaging algorithms are usually designed tomigrate seismic data recorded on flat surfaces. However, real seismic data are often recorded along highly irregular topography. If such imaging algorithms for flat-datum seismic data are simply applied to the migration of topographic seismic data, the resulting images may be totally wrong. To address topographic problems in seismic depth migrations, we can transform topographic seismic data to a flat datum, using static corrections or wave-equation datuming, and use regular depth imaging methods to work with such seismic data. A direct way of topographic compensation is adapting regular imaging algorithms to topographic seismic data imaging, without any data conversion or datuming. In this paper, we describe the method of wavefield extrapolation (depth migration) directly from topography using the Gabor depth migration method.