Numerical simulation of seismic wave propagation in attenuative transversely isotropic media

Ali Fathalian, Daniel O. Trad, Kristopher A. Innanen

Simulation of wave propagation in a TTI viscoacoustic medium is an important problem. We have developed a derivation of a system of equations for viscoacoustic wavesin a medium with transverse isotropy (TI) in velocity and attenuation based on a standard linear solid model. The resulting system of equations is first order in time for thestress-strain relationship. The numerical implementation of this system determines withthe finite-difference method, with second-order accuracy in time and fourth-order accuracyin space. Our results show that the proposed approach for modeling is able of capturing TIeffects in attenuation and illustrating the efficiency of this system of equations for applications in seismic imaging and inversion.