Cross-correlation based time warping of one-dimensional seismic signals

David Cho

The computation of a dynamic displacement field between pairs of seismic traces has numerous geophysical applications including the estimation of displacement vectors in time lapse seismic, P- to S-wave image registration, and residual moveout correction. In this paper, I present a cross-correlation based methodology for the estimation of small time displacements between signals followed by stretching to match the signals. The utility of the algorithm was demonstrated through a synthetic time lapse example illustrating production effects and the associated time shifts between baseline and monitor surveys. The differencing of the baseline and monitor traces prior to warping results in apparent amplitude changes below the reservoir interval. Upon application of the warping algorithm, the undesirable amplitude changes below the reservoir interval are reduced.