Journal of Geophysics and Engineering

J. Geophys. Eng. 12 (2015) 199–209 doi:10.1088/1742-2132/12/2/199

Automated diffraction delineation using an

apex-shifted Radon transform
Sadegh Karimpouli1, Alireza Malehmir2, Hossein Hassani3,
Hossein Khoshdel4 and Majid Nabi-Bidhendi5
1
  Mining Engineering Group, Faculty of Engineering, University of Zanjan, Zanjan, Iran
2
  Department of Earth Sciences, Uppsala University, SE 75236 Uppsala, Sweden
3
  Faculty of Mining and Metallurgy Engineering, Amirkabir University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
4
  Exploration Directorate, NIOC, Tehran, Iran
5
  Institute of Geophysics, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

E-mail: s.karimpouli@znu.ac.ir

Received 27 June 2014, revised 27 October 2014

Accepted for publication 12 January 2015
Published 10 March 2015

Abstract
Diffraction arrivals are important data that have increasingly been used to delineate the
sources of diffractors and to explore subsurface discontinuities. In prestack data, diffractions
are both zero- and non-zero offset hyperbolas while reflections are only zero-offset
hyperbolas. An iterative algorithm using an apex-shifted Radon transform (ASRT) approach
is presented in this paper that uses the diffraction hyperbolic trajectory similar to that of
prestack time migration in order to locate diffractors and to estimate their corresponding
background velocities. Because diffraction energy is generally weak in seismic data and
particularly in prestack data, noise attenuation and edge enhancement methods are applied
on the instantaneous phase of the seismic data instead of the amplitude data. This means that
the phase data are input to the ASRT algorithm. The method is then tested on two synthetic
datasets (a point-diffraction model with randomly distributed diffractors and the 2D BP/SEG
salt model) and one real data example. Results show that this method can locate the diffractors
reasonably well on the rough surfaces of the salt dome and the discontinuities associated
with structures such as paleo-channels and faults. Our analysis of the estimated velocities
suggests that they are generally valid for diffraction delineation; however, the accuracy of the
estimation decreases as background velocity and depth increase.

Keywords: diffractions, apex-shifted Radon transform, discontinuities, velocity estimation

(Some figures may appear in colour only in the online journal)

1. Introduction In summary, the following approaches have been studied: (1)

Diffracted seismic waves provide valuable data for detecting
and distinguishing important subsurface structures such as frac-
ture zones, faults, pinch-outs, reef edges, sub-volcanic mounds,
small intrusive bodies, rough surfaces of salt domes and other
geological discontinuities. These seismic structures can play
an important role in, for example, mineral exploration (e.g.
Malehmir and Bellefleur 2009, Malehmir et al 2011, 2012,
Malinowski et al 2012) and hydrocarbon exploration and/or
production (e.g. Tsingas et al 2011, Karimpouli et al 2013).
Over the past three decades, different properties of dif-
fractions have been studied to identify their point of origin.
kinematic travel times of the diffracted arrivals (e.g. Landa
et al 1987, Kanasewich and Phadke 1988, Tsingas et al
2011), (2) separation of the weak energy of diffractions from
the reflected waves (e.g. Taner et al 2006, Fomel et al 2007,
Berkovitch et al 2009, Al-Dajani and Fomel 2010, Burnett
and Fomel 2011, Dell and Gajewski 2011, Klokov and Fomel
2012), (3) modification of the conventional Kirchhoff migra-
tion algorithm to include diffracting points (e.g. Schmelzbach
et al 2008, Malehmir et al 2009, 2010, Zhu and Wu 2010;
Bellefleur et al 2012) and (4) application of image processing
techniques usually using pattern recognition techniques such
as Radon and Hough transforms (Windsor et al 2005, Song

1742-2132/15/020199+11$33.00 199 © 2015 Sinopec Geophysical Research Institute  Printed in the UK

J. Geophys. Eng. 12 (2015) 199 S Karimpouli et al

et al 2010, Figueiredo et al 2012). An issue here is that in point, implying that diffraction delineation and a simple
all of these studies, even those separating different sources of velocity analysis can be done simultaneously.
seismic energy, the user or interpreter has to make a decision One issue that should be dealt with is the weak energy of
about the location of the diffraction at some stage of the work. diffracted waves compared with reflected ones. The maximum
This procedure is often inaccurate. amplitude of a diffraction (which occurs at its apex) is one-
In this study, we propose a procedure that is based on the half that of the associated reflection (Trorey 1970) making
delineation of diffracted energy using an apex-shifted Radon diffractions difficult to detect in a seismic section, especially
transform (ASRT) method (Trad et al 2003). This method in shot records. Energy also decays quickly as the diffraction
uses the kinematics of diffraction travel times in the pre- tails off, and as such, sometimes recognizing it is difficult.
stack domain (similar to prestack time migration). In seismic To overcome this problem and enhance diffractions in the
studies, linear or slant stacking (Yilmaz 2001), hyperbolic, presence of reflections, we propose to use the instantaneous
parabolic, hybrid and apex-shifted Radon transforms have phase instead of the amplitude of the data mainly because
often been used, for example for velocity analysis (Thorson coherent events are more easily detectable in phase sections.
and Claerbout 1985), multiple attenuation (Foster and Mosher The instantaneous phase of seismic data can be extracted after
1992, Wang 2003, Trad et al 2003) and diffraction enhance- applying field and elevation statics, surface-consistent decon-
ment and/or attenuation (Nowak 2004, Bansal and Imhof volution and any other processing steps necessary to improve
2005, Klokov and Fomel 2012). In shot gather data, diffrac- the continuity of diffractions. A second step that we propose
tion points appear at any offsets, which means conventional for enhancing seismic events is to apply a Gaussian derivative
Radon transforms cannot locate them, except ASRT. Applying operator, a well-known edge detector function (Canny 1986).
ASRT in a similar procedure to prestack time migration allows In the following sub-sections, these steps are first explained
us to find the locations of diffractions in shot gather data and and then the procedure is thoroughly described.
their background velocities as well. Therefore, shot gather dif-
fraction locations can be normal moveout (NMO) corrected
using the predicted background velocities and then stacked 2.1.  Pre-processing of seismic data
to produce a diffraction location section (output) instead of a
Since in our approach the Radon transform projects seismic
seismic section.
events along a hyperbolic trajectory, it is important that all
Since diffraction signals are often weaker than reflection
coherent events are comparable in quality. In the phase
signals (Berryhill 1977, Klem-Musatov 1994) we use the
domain, it does not matter how strong the recorded energy
instantaneous phase of the data rather than their amplitudes.
is; phase changes are the only important issue. The phase is
To enhance diffraction events, we apply both noise reduction
independent of the amplitude and this makes it more viable to
and edge detection methods. Compared with poststack data,
image coherent but weak events such as diffractions (Taner
this is particularly important since in prestack data diffrac-
et al 1979).
tions are much weaker. Therefore, in this paper we present
Let D(x, t ) be a 2D section of seismic data and D*(x, t ) be
and apply the proposed method to two synthetic datasets
the quadrature section derived by a 2D Hilbert transform of
and one real data example that demonstrate its capability for
this section. A complex or analytic section  Z (x, t ) is defined
locating geological irregularities. The method provides first-
by (Barnes 1996):
hand information on the background velocities, which can
further be used in other applications such as for building an Z (x, t ) = D (x, t ) + iD* (x, t ) = A  exp(iθ )
(1)
initial velocity model that can be used for prestack time or
depth migrations. We show how the method provides reliable A = Z (x, t ) = (D 2 (x, t ) + D*2 (x, t ) )1/2
(2)
results, especially at shallow depths or in low-velocity envi-
ronments such as in sedimentary settings. We also discuss its θ = arg (Z (x, t ) ) = arctan (D(x, t )/ D*(x, t ))
(3)
limitations in heterogeneous and anisotropic environments.
where A is the 2D instantaneous amplitude or envelope, i is
the imaginary unit and θ is the 2D instantaneous phase.
2.  Theory and methodology Figure 1 shows a comparison between an amplitude sec-
tion  and the corresponding 2D instantaneous phase section.
We use the hyperbolic Radon transform in non-zero offsets to Strong events in the amplitude section (figure 1(a)) are weak-
separate diffractions from other coherent events in prestack ened as time increases. Some events are not even recogniz-
seismic data. In shot gathers, semi-hyperbolic reflections (and/ able because of their weak amplitudes. In the instantaneous
or multiples), hyperbolic diffractions and noise (both ambient phase section (figure 1(b)), however, most events are recog-
and source-generated) can be observed. Noise generally has nizable. The phase section  appears complicated since every
no preferred shape, but it can disturb or mask other events. weak event is now apparent. This demonstrates why the phase
Hyperbolic events in seismic data can be focused using the section is superior to the amplitude section for the purpose of
ASRT to a parameter domain. Detection of maximum values diffraction imaging.
in the parameter domain (Shapiro and Stockman 2001) leads In case of low signal-to-noise ratio data, computation of
to identifying the diffraction location in time and space (t – x) the instantaneous phase is problematic and unreliable, which
and the rms-velocity of the medium around the diffraction must also be considered. Even low-level noise can degrade the

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J. Geophys. Eng. 12 (2015) 199 S Karimpouli et al

(a) (b)
Offset (m) Offset (m)
-600 -300 0 300 600 -600 -300 0 300 600 Phase (Deg.)

1300 1300
150

1400 1400
100

1500 1500
50

Time (ms)
Time (ms)

1600 1600
0

1700 1700
−50

1800 1800
-100

1900 1900
-150

2000 2000

Figure 1. (a) Amplitude and (b) corresponding instantaneous phase of a synthetic shot gather data. Note that coherent events are better
observed in the phase section even when their amplitudes are much weaker.

actual phase section, and thus can also be a problematic issue. Ds Dr

If noise is not coherent then its effect is negligible during the S D R
focusing procedure of the Radon transform (this will be illus-
trated later). For coherent noise, reduction methods such as
median and/or Wiener filters can be used. Generally, coherent
source-generated noise should be attenuated as much as
Depth

possible.
After the noise reduction, a Gaussian derivative operator
(Canny 1986) is further applied to enhance the seismic events.
The total derivative of the instantaneous phase in two direc-
tions (horizontal and vertical) with a small 2D Gaussian
kernel is used. Trorey (1977) showed that an edge diffractor
generates diffracted waves with opposite phases on the two
tails. The magnitude of the derivatives removes the effect of
the phase change on the edge diffractions. Phase changes thus
Time

have no disturbing effect on the algorithm’s capability for

even detecting edge-diffractions.

2.2.  Apex-shifted Radon transform

The Radon transform was established by Radon (1986) and is

an operator that integrates some physical property of a medium
along a particular path. As mentioned earlier, numerous appli-
cations of the Radon transform have been applied in explora-
tion seismology. The ASRT is an extension of the standard
hyperbolic Radon transform with hyperbolic basis functions
located at every point of a data gather. The mathematical
description of such an operator is similar to the kinematic
prestack time migration equation, with the horizontal coordi-
nates being offsets instead of the midpoints (Trad et al 2003).
Kanasewich and Phadke (1988) presented the travel time of
diffracted waves in prestack data as the following (figure 2):
t 2 (S − D )2 t02 (D − R )2
t= 0 +
(4) 2
+ + 2
4 vrms 4 vrms
Receivers (Diffracted waves)
Figure 2.  A sketch showing diffraction hyperbola in prestack data.
The travel time of the hyperbola is obtained using equation (5)
shown in the text. The apex occurs on the trace located at
diffraction location (D) in space (modified from Berryhill 1977 and
Kanasewich and Phadke 1988).
where t0 is the diffraction location in time and S, R and D
are shot, receiver and diffractor locations along the seismic
profile, respectively. vrms is the rms-velocity of the medium
at the diffractor location. As illustrated in figure 2, the max-
imum amplitude of the diffraction occurs at the receiver cor-
responding to the midpoint coincident with the diffractor
point (Dr = Ds ). Note that, in shot gather data, a phase change

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(a) (b)
1

100 100 1500

0.75

Sample number
Sample number

200 200
1000
0.5
300 300
500
0.25
400 400

500 0 500 0
100 200 300 400 500 100 200 300 400 500
Trace number Trace number
(c) (d)

300
100 100 150
250
Sample number

Sample number

200 200 200

100
150
300 300
100 50
50
400 400
0 0

500 500
100 200 300 400 500 100 200 300 400 500
Trace number Trace number

Figure 3. (a) Synthetic hyperbola with 20% added random noise relative to the maximum amplitude of the data with i0 = 250, j0 = 250,
jS = 250 dx = 4 m, dt = 2 ms and vrms = 2000 m s−1 (see equation (5)). A 3D array of the parameter domain corresponding to the Radon
transform is shown in 2D arrays from (b)–(d). (b) Parameters domain for vrms = 2000 m s−1; (c) for vrms = 4000 m s−1; and (d) for
vrms = 1000 m s−1. The maximum value of the parameter domain (located in (b)) indicates that the unknown parameters of the hyperbola
are i0 = 250, j0 = 250, and vrms = 2000 m s−1, i.e. the same values as the real model.

occurs at this trace (R in figure 2). After discretization, t = i dt, represents the seismic data in the t – x domain (or in the i – j
t0 = i0 dt,  S = jS dx, R = jr dx, D = j0 dx equation  (4) can be discrete domain) and dm contains dt, dx and dvrms for time,
written as (still in shot gather domain): trace and rms-velocity intervals, respectively (di, dj and dv in
the discrete domain). This relation can be written as:
i 2 (j − j )2 dx 2 i 2 (j − j )2 dx 2
i= 0 + S 20 2
(5) + 0 + 0 2r 2 +∞
4 vrms dt 4 vrms dt
(7)
Rf (i0, j0 , vrms ) = ∬∫−∞
f (i, j ) δ (i − ξ )  di  dj  dv
where dx and dt are receiver (or trace) interval and sampling where δ(.) is the Dirac delta function which is zero where i ≠ ξ.
rate, respectively; (i0, j0 ) defines the apex of the hyperbola in The parameters domain is informative since diffractions are
discrete space and jS and jr are shot and receiver locations, converted to points. Therefore, finding voxels with the max-
respectively. imum value in this domain allows us to detect the coordinates
The general form of the Radon transform can be written as of the apex (i0, j0 ), and the rms-velocity (vrms ).
(Helgason 1999): Figure 3 shows how the ASRT is capable of estimating the
unknown parameters of equation (5). Figure 3(a) is a 500 by
Rf (ξ ) =
(6) f (s ) dm(s ) ∫ 500 sample synthetic dataset containing a diffraction hyperbola
contaminated by 20% random noise based on the maximum
ξ
amplitude of the data. The diffraction hyperbola according
where Rf (.) is the Radon transform of f (.) and dm is the to equation  (5) is defined as i0 = 250, j0 = 250, js = 250,
Euclidean measure on the hyperplane ξ in Euclidean space. dx = 4 m, dt = 2 ms and vrms = 2000 m s−1. A 3D array was used
In our case, ξ is the hyperbolic path (equation (5)) with for the parameters domain in which i0 and j0 varied from the
three parameters, i0, j0 and vrms, where Rf (.) is the ASRT, f (.) minimum to maximum values of the data size (from 1 to 500)

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(a) (b)

(c) (d) App

Hhyp

Figure 4.  A schematic illustration of iterative procedure used in the method. In the first iteration (a), the maximum value of the parameter
domain (b) is selected and the corresponding hyperbola is removed from the data (c) and iterations continue until N hyperbolas are found.
After the first iteration ((a)–(c)), to speed up the algorithm, Radon transform is calculated just for the shaded window (d) for the remaining
iterations. ‘App’ is an optimum aperture for diffraction hyperbola which is selected by the user and ‘Hhyp’ is the height of the hyperbola.

and di = dj = 1, implying that each data point could poten-
tially be a diffraction location; vrms was varied from 1000 to
4000 m s−1 with an increment of 1000 m s−1 (dv = 1000 m s−1).
Three values of the velocities are shown in figure 3. One of
them is the real velocity (2000 m s−1) and the two others are
1000 m s−1 and 4000 m s−1, which are lower and higher than
the real velocity, respectively. Resolution of the velocity is
discussed later in this paper. Figures 3(b)–(d) shows the values
of the parameters domain calculated using the ASRT of the
diffraction model (figure 3(a)). The location of the data point
with the maximum value in the parameter domain is found at
i0 = 250, j0 = 250 and vrms = 2000 m s−1 (figure 3(b)), which
are the same as the values for the real model.
2.2.1. Point-like diffractor assumption.  The assumption of a
point-like diffractor as the source of the diffracted energy in
a homogeneous and isotropic media is an issue. If, however,
the point diffraction assumption does not hold (i.e. target fea-
tures have a dimension about one wavelength: Mie scattering
regime), the diffracted arrivals, especially those from dipping
structures, will be asymmetric around the diffractor (Bohlen
et al 2003, Malehmir et al 2009, 2013, Dehghannejad et al
2012, Bellefleur et al 2012, Cheraghi et al 2013), leading to
incorrect results. The same can be said where the media is
strongly anisotropic. In the case of tilted transverse isotropy
diffractions will be asymmetric in almost all directions. For
horizontal transverse isotropy diffractions may be symmetric
in both the perpendicular and horizontal orientations to the
anisotropic fabrics, but will have two different characters (still
asymmetric in 3D). In the case of vertical transverse anisot-
ropy diffractions will also be asymmetric and distorted from
a perfect hyperbolic shape. The velocities estimated in all
these three scenarios are likely to be incorrect and reflect the
anisotropic velocities that are faster parallel to the fabric and
slower perpendicular to the anisotropic fabric. Note that an
NMO correction ignoring the anisotropy effects also leads to
incorrect results. These observations may still help to iden-
tify anisotropy in the data (for example by assuming there is
one dominant direction and then search for the orientation and
velocities) by investigating the different behavior of the dif-
fracted energy. Such an analysis is, however, beyond the scope
of our paper and will be investigated in the near future. For
simplicity, we do assume that diffractions are generated from
point sources but are aware of the issues with this assump-
tion. There are still cases of point-like diffractors that occur in
nature; for example diffractions from small intrusive bodies,
sub-volcanic mounds, and cavities can be considered as gen-
erating from point sources.
2.2.2. Iterations.  There are some effective methods to
determine maximum values in the parameter domain. Local
maxima (Shapiro and Stockman 2001) and thresholding
(Cooper 2006) are common processes when using the Radon
transform; however, an iterative form of this method can be
more effective (figure 4). In the first iteration (figure 4(a)),
the location of the maximum value in the parameter domain

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J. Geophys. Eng. 12 (2015) 199
Seismic data
Prestack data
Pre-processing of the seismic data
1. General pre-processing steps
2. Extracting instantaneous phase
3. Noise reduction (median filter)
4. Edge enhancement (Gaussian derivative operator)
ASRT (iteration #1)
1. Transforming the data to the parameters domain
2. Extracting the most plausible hyperbola
Updating the input data
Removing extracted hyperbola
For i = 2 to N
ASRT (iteration #i)
1. Transforming part of the data affected by
removed hyperbola to the parameters domain
2. Extracting the most plausible hyperbola
Figure 5.  Proposed workflow of the 3-parametric hyperbolic Radon
transform for diffraction delineating used in this study.
(figure 4(a)) specifies the most plausible unknown parameters
of equation (5) (i.e. i0, j0 and vrms). Then, the corresponding
hyperbola in the input data is removed from the data using
the same equation (equation (5)) (figure 4(c)). This can sim-
ply be done by setting all values of the data along the esti-
mated hyperbolic path to zero. A conservative manner of this
destructive procedure is to select a number ranging from 0
to 0.5. In the second iteration, the ASRT is calculated for the
updated data (figure 4(c)). The maximum value is determined
in this iteration and then the second hyperbola is removed
from the data. Iterations continue until a number N of dif-
fractions are found. Removing the hyperbolic-shaped events
changes the values of a limited part of the input data while
the other parts of the data remain untouched. This means that
the ASRT can be calculated for a small part of the parameter
domain corresponding to the removed part of the input data
(shaded data in figure 4(d)) in a subsequent iteration. Accord-
ing to figure 4(d), the affected data are dark shaded but we
consider both dark and light shaded data areas as the target
area since this is easier to calculate in a rectangular window.
Because the central point of the window is an apex point, the
length and width of the window is equal to a search aper-
ture (App; see figure  4), which is selected by the user, and
the height of the hyperbola (Hhyp) on each side of the central
point (figure 4(d)).
Figure 5 shows the workflow of the proposed algorithm for
automated diffraction delineation using the iterative format of
the ASRT. The entire procedure involves two main parts: (1)
pre-processing of the input data containing the general steps
mentioned above, extracting the instantaneous phase of the
seismic data, noise reduction and edge enhancement, and (2)
extracting hyperbolic features using the iterative approach.
204
S Karimpouli et al
The number of iterations is defined by the user and the proce-
dure stops when all iterations are complete.
Now, we show the implementation of the method on shot
gather data from two synthetic models and on a real dataset.
To compare the results with the models, diffraction locations
are corrected for their NMO in each shot gather using the
estimated velocities and are stacked together to form a 2D
section of diffraction locations. No additional velocity infor-
mation is used to produce the sections.
3.  Synthetic data
3.1.  Point-diffraction model
We built a simple 2D model (figure 6(a)) comprised of sev-
eral point diffractors and generated synthetic shots using an
elastic finite-difference code (Juhlin 1995) in Seismic Unix
(Stockwell and Cohen 2008). Here, we only consider the ver-
tical component of the data. The background synthetic model
consists of three layers with average properties of shallow
sedimentary rocks. All parameters of the model are shown in
table 1. The model consists of 2000 by 2000 cells discretized
by 2 m cells. We generated 56 synthetic shots across the model
with 25 m shot spacing and 1000 receivers spaced at every
4 m. Synthetic seismograms were generated using a Ricker
wavelet with a 50 Hz central frequency. Thirty small (4 by
4 m) diffractors were randomly positioned within the model to
be delineated using the ASRT method.
After implementing our method to each individual shot
gather, diffraction points found in each shot gather were cor-
rected for NMO with the corresponding estimated velocities
and then stacked to obtain a 2D section of the point diffrac-
tors. The desired window was then used through the section to
calculate the number of points within it. The final result can
be shown as a probability or redundancy section  of the dif-
fraction occurrences (figure 6(b)). Cells with high redundancy
match well the locations of the diffractors and are shown by
red circles for display purposes (figure 6(b)). Note the effect
of the seismic fold on the results. Diffractions are better delin-
eated in the middle of the model where the seismic fold is
much higher compared to the margins of the model. Since the
NMO correction is done using the estimated velocities, the
overlap of the final results with the diffraction locations con-
firms the accuracy of the estimated velocities. However, some
solutions do not accurately match the locations of diffractors,
which is due to errors in the estimated velocities. Figure  7
shows the velocities estimated from the method and the rms-
velocity of the model. The small error in the velocity estima-
tion is due to the coarse velocity intervals used in the method.
A relatively coarse velocity interval (50 m s−1) was selected
compared with the gradual increase of the real rms-velocity
(less than 5 m s−1).
However, the method is not able to predict estimated
velocity better than 50 m s−1 using a finer velocity interval
since only small change in the aperture of the diffraction
hyperbola is produced by such a small velocity change. We
scrutinized this using a simple model with two (low and high)
velocity layers, each of them containing two diffraction points
J. Geophys. Eng. 12 (2015) 199
(a)
400
Depth (m)
800
1200
1600
2000
400 800 1200 1600
Distance along the model (m)
Figure 6. (a) 2D point-like diffractor synthetic model used to generate synthetic data. The properties of each layer are found in table 1.
Fifty-six shots spreading from 300 to 1700 mm with 25 m spacing and 1000 receivers with 4 m spacing spreading all along the line were
generated. (b) 2D diffraction section representing the locations of the diffraction points found using the proposed method. The results are
color-coded according to their redundancy in the solution and shown together with the real diffraction points (after converting the depth
section to time) as circles.
Table 1.  Main properties of the point-like diffractor model shown
in figure 6.
Layer Thickness (m) Vp (m s−1) Vs (m s−1) Rho (g cm−3)
1 500 1800 990 2.3
2 700 2500 1375 2.4
3 800 3000 1650 2.5
at different depths (figure 8). Deeper diffractions have hyper-
bolas with wider apertures/tails than the shallower ones in a
constant velocity model. This effect is also considered in the
model. Table 2 shows the properties of the model. The same
acquisition geometry as the point diffraction model was used
to generate the seismic data, but just a single shot gather with
the source located on the top of the diffractors was generated
as shown in figure 9. If the shot depth and dimensions of the
diffractors are ignored, the hyperbolic events at approximately
400, 600, 1180 and 1270 ms correspond to the point diffrac-
tions. A reflection from the second layer is observed at about
1000 ms and an event at about 800 ms is a multiple of the first
diffraction. Our method was implemented on these data, with
the corresponding results shown in figure  10. As expected,
diffraction locations areaccurately predicted. To evaluate
the accuracy of the estimated velocities, different meshes
from fine to coarse intervals of velocity (10, 25, 50, 100 and
200 m s−1) were tested. We observed that, in a low velocity
background, small changes in the velocity had a large effect
on the extent of the aperture of the diffraction hyperbola while
for a high velocity background large changes in the veloci-
ties had no important impact on the extent of the diffraction
aperture. We conclude from these results that the accuracy of
this method to estimate the velocities at shallow depths with
a low background velocity can be as good as ±50 m s−1, while
at greater depths and high background velocity the resolu-
tion decreases dramatically. This decrease in the accuracy
will obviously have negative effects on the NMO correction
and migration. Therefore, velocity information obtained by
this method is reliable for diffraction delineation in rather
low velocity media such as in sedimentary environments or at
exploration depths and certainly for shallow and near-surface
applications such as for ground penetrating radar (GPR) data.
S Karimpouli et al
Velocity (m/s)
(b) Redundancy
3000 20
100
2500 200 15
300
Time (ms)
2000 400 10
500
1500 600 5
700
1000 800 0
2000 400 800 1200 1600 2000
Distance along the model (m)
3.2.  2D BP model-2004 EAGE/SEG dataset
The 2D BP model has a streamer configuration, comprising a
15 km long array of receivers spaced at every 12.5 m and 50 m
shot interval (Billette and Brandsberg-Dahl 2005). A total of
1340 shots were generated each with 1201 receivers. There
were two salt domes in the model, of which, one was selected
in this study to test the method; 250 shot gathers (from shot
number 101–350) with 6 s record length were chosen.
The target structure is the top of the salt dome, which is
expected to generate diffractions in both prestack and unmi-
grated stacked data. The high velocity contrast between the
salt and the background, and the roughness of the salt surface,
generate lots of diffractions, implying that it is possible to
find the top of the salt by locating diffractions generated by it.
Figure 11 shows the locations of diffraction apexes and their
corresponding velocities estimated in a pre-processed phase
image of shot number 200. In this shot gather, 50 hyperbolas
(the number of iterations was 100) were detected, of which,
only 19 were accepted by the criteria introduced later in the
paper. Most of the rejected hyperbolas were reflectors (i.e.
geological layers). Diffraction apexes and velocities for all the
shots were obtained and after NMO correction and stacking
were converted from time to depth. High redundant apexes
(>50%) are shown in figure 12, which is the velocity model
used to generate the BP seismic data (Billette and Brandsberg-
Dahl 2005). In almost all places, our method has been suc-
cessful in locating the rough surfaces on the top of the salt
body. Since diffraction points are located in a linear pattern
and are not well distributed in the model, displaying a velocity
section  was not considered. However, diffraction locations
match well with the location of the salt surface, which is an
indicator for the goodness of the estimated velocities.
4.  Real data
The real data used to demonstrate the capability of the method
are from a 2D land seismic survey, which was acquired for
hydrocarbon exploration. Eighty-five shot gathers with 488
receivers in each shot were selected for this study. Shot
and receiver intervals were 45 m and 22.5 mm, respectively,
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J. Geophys. Eng. 12 (2015) 199 S Karimpouli et al

(a) (b)
Velocity (m/s) Velocity (m/s)

2400 100 2400

100
200 2300 200 2300
300 300

Time (ms)
Time (ms)

2200 2200
400 400
2100 2100
500 500
2000 2000
600 600
700 1900 700 1900

800 1800 800 1800

400 800 1200 1600 2000 400 800 1200 1600 2000
Distance along the model (m) Distance along the model (m)

Figure 7.  Comparison between the rms-velocity of the point-diffraction model (a) and the estimated velocity section using the method (b).
Note that the estimated velocities are related to just the diffractor points in the model but have been extended for better comparison.

Offset (m)
-600 -200 200 600
0
Depth (m)

200

400

600
Time (ms)

Distance along the model (m)

Figure 8.  A 2D model containing four point-like diffractors used

800
to generate synthetic data to explore the accuracy of the estimated
velocities. The properties of each layer are found in table 2. The
geometry of the seismic survey is the same as the point-diffraction
model shown in figure 6, but this time just a single shot gather data 1000
located on top of the diffraction locations is generated.

Table 2.  Main properties of the four-point diffractor model shown
in figure 10.
Layer Thickness (m) Vp (m s−1) Vs (m s−1)
1 1000 2000 1100
2 1000 4500 2475
resulting in a 2D section 3825 m long (figure 13). The ampli-
tude section  shows a horizontally layered medium gently
dipping to the right-hand side of the section. The section can
be divided into three parts: (1) an upper part (down to about
2000 ms)—horizontal reflections with strong energy; (2) a
middle part (from about 2000–2200–2300 ms)—discontin-
uous structures including a channel and some faults and (3)
a lower part (from 2200–2300 ms to the end)—horizontal
reflections with weak energy. Our targets here were the
channel, faults and other discontinuities in the middle part of
the seismic section.
The proposed method was applied on the shot gather data
and then they were NMO corrected and stacked using the esti-
mated velocities. Final results are also shown in figure 13, a
2D section with a high number of redundant diffraction points
(>50%) superimposed on the corresponding seismic section.
The channel and some fault locations are detected using the
corresponding diffracted signals. However, some of the other
1200
Rho (g cm−3)
1400
2.4
2.5 Figure 9.  Seismic response and results of the method (red squares)
for the shot generated using the model shown in figure 10. The
hyperbolic events at 400, 600, 1178 and 1267 ms are from the point
diffractions (P1–P4) shown in figure 10. The reflection from the
second layer can be seen at 1000 ms and an event at 800 ms seems
to be a multiple from the first diffraction. Results suggest that the
accuracy of the estimated velocities decreases by increasing depth
and velocity.
features cannot be explained by the overlaid structures and
require further checking. Note that these results were obtained
with no velocity information available.
5. Discussion
There are some important issues about our proposed method
that should be discussed. One particular issue is how the
method distinguishes between a reflection and a diffraction.
Since reflections have a semi-hyperbolic shape and wider
aperture, even for dipping reflections, estimated velocities
are higher than the rms-velocities of the medium (figure 10).
Therefore, velocity estimation can be one method to distinguish

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J. Geophys. Eng. 12 (2015) 199 S Karimpouli et al

Offset (m) Velocity (m/s)

-600 -200 200 600 4500
0
4000
1200
200
3500
2400

Depth (m)
400 3000
3600
2500
600
Time (ms)

4800
2000
800
6000 1500
7500 10000 12500 15000 17500
Distance along the model (m)
1000
Figure 12.  A portion of the BP velocity model. The red circles are
highly redundant (>50%) time-to-depth converted apexes found
1200 on the prestack shot gathers but are superimposed on the velocity
model for comparison.

1400
1800
Figure 10.  The results of the proposed ASRT method to find both DC DC F
2000
Time (ms)

diffraction location (solid rectangles) and velocity for the four-point

diffractor model. Note that the accuracy of the estimated velocities
decreases as depth and velocity increase. 2200

CH
DC
2400

F
600
2600
1200 0 1000 2000 3000
Distance along the profile (m)
1800
Figure 13.  2D section of a real seismic data overlaid with
diffraction points (solid circles) obtained by the ASRT method.
2400
(1500) The results match well with target structures such as channel (CH),
Time (ms)

faults (F) and other discontinuities (DC).

3000
NMO correction, no reflection remains in the final results. As
3600 (1700)
a consequence, some diffractions may also be missed by this
(1600) removal. However, since there are many shots (prestack data),
4200 (1700)
the excluded diffractions in one shot can hopefully be cap-
(1700)
4800
tured in other shots. This is also an advantage when prestack
data are used for diffraction delineation using the described
(1900)
5400 (1800) (2000) Radon transform method. It is obvious from figures 6(b), 12
(1900)
(2000) and 13 that the method is capable of distinguishing reflections
(1900) (2100)
6000 from diffraction points.
200 400 600 800 1000 1200 Another issue with the method is the choice of the
Trace number
number of iterations (N). The number of iterations depends
Figure 11.  Pre-processed phase image of shot number 200 of the on the complexity of the media and is determined by the
BP synthetic data and diffraction apexes (solid circles) detected by user based on the target(s) and perhaps some preconceptions
the method. 50 apexes were detected, of which, 19 were accepted about the media. A high N leads to more accurate results,
as the most plausible solutions. The estimated velocity is shown for
but the run time of the method also increases. Therefore, an
each apex.
optimum value can be obtained for N using trial and error.
between diffractions and reflections, but we prefer a simpler As the user defines the number of iterations, the method
way. In shot gather data, points associated with reflections (or generates N number of results, which are the most plausible
multiples) are found at different times, but around the shot hyperbolic shapes. This can become a concern when there
location ( js in equation  (5)). If the points located within a are no diffractions (or as many) in the data, but N solutions
certain range around the shot trace are removed before the are found. In a complex medium with a mixture of events, it

207
J. Geophys. Eng. 12 (2015) 199
c1
a c2
c3
b have been studied to locate their corresponding sources. We
b have presented a procedure for automated diffraction delin-
Figure 14.  Schematic model demonstrating potential issues that
maybe occurred during the diffraction hyperbola detection using
a hypothetical shot gather data. Events marked by (a), (b), and
(c1–c3) are from a reflector, diffraction and predicted hyperbolas,
respectively. All the three predicted diffractions (c1–c3) are false
solutions; (c1) occurs because of high value cells located at the apex
of the semi-hyperbola shape of the reflector; (c2) occurs because of
high value cells located on the tail of the reflector hyperbola;
(c3) occurs on the cross-points of the two hyperbolas.
is inevitable that some diffraction solutions are not true. To
avoid erroneous interpretations, we suggest some ‘accept or
reject’ criteria on the generated results after every iteration
to allow exclusion of artifacts. Figure  14 shows problem-
atic situations in a hypothetical shot gather also relevant for
some geological scenarios. Situation ‘(c1)’ in figure  14 is
when the apex of a reflection can be wrongly replaced by a
high velocity diffraction hyperbola. As mentioned before, a
muting procedure with a reasonable range around the shot
trace can be helpful to remove these solutions. Situation
‘(c2)’ in figure 14 happens when high pixel values are pre-
sent close to the tails of a reflection hyperbola. An operator
that compares the two sides of a predicted hyperbola is useful
to reject such solutions. Situation ‘(c3)’ is the cross-point
of two hyperbolas. This situation is automatically rejected
during the iterative procedure, because all points along the
hyperbola (‘(b)’ in figure  14) turn to zero. However, with
a reasonable number of iterations and/or by limiting the
velocity search (a priori information), the detection chance
of these solutions is reduced.
The proposed method is one of the first attempts at using
the ASRT to locate diffractions and their corresponding
velocities. It is easy to run and does not require any com-
plicated computation. Input data (even prestack data) do not
need to be heavily processed, except for some routine steps
of pre-processing such as static corrections, deconvolution
and attenuation of source-generated noise and, more impor-
tantly, no velocity information is needed. The method took
only 15 s to generate results for a shot gather containing 1000
by 1000 samples; 100 iterations and 100 traces for aperture
of the hyperbola were used. An Intel® Core™ i7 CPU with
4 GB random access memory (RAM) was used. On the other
hand, since all the steps are identical for each shot gather, the
algorithm can be parallelized for massive data computing
and testing of parameters. Further studies are recommended
to exploit the application of the method in anisotropic and
strongly heterogeneous settings.
208
S Karimpouli et al
6. Conclusions
Diffractions contain valuable information, which can be used
to detect fracture zones, faults, pinch-outs, mineral deposits,
cavities, reef edges and other geological discontinuities.
During the last three decades, various aspects of diffractions
eation and velocity analysis based on an apex-shifted Radon
transform algorithm. After pre-processing the seismic data,
consisting mainly of extracting the instantaneous phase, noise
reduction and edge enhancement, the method is applied in
order to characterize the diffraction hyperbolas in an itera-
tive manner. We built a synthetic model with randomly dis-
tributed point diffractors and then generated shot gather data.
The implementation of our method presented in a redundancy
section of the diffraction locations showed a good correlation
with the model. The estimated velocities also showed a good
correlation with the rms-velocities of the model. We also used
the 2D BP salt model to find the location of the salt body using
this method. Results showed that the rough surfaces of the salt
dome, considered as the main source of the diffractions, were
well detected. Finally, the method was tested on a real data
example. In this case, channel, faults and some other disconti-
nuities were the target structures, most of which were success-
fully detected using this method.
While the method has some limitations, it also has some
potential to be further exploited. Future work may include:
(1) further improvement of the input data; (2) the design of
some more effective criteria, which can help to exclude incor-
rect identification of diffractors in complex geological media;
(3) applying some antialiasing algorithms such as delay-time
Radon transform (Wang 2002) and (4) further studies to detect
other important subsurface structures such as fracture zones in
hydrocarbon reservoirs and in anisotropic media.
Acknowledgments
SK visited Uppsala University where this research was ini-
tiated and conducted. He acknowledges the kind technical
support provided by the geophysical staff at the Geophysics
Program, especially those by S Cheraghi and C Juhlin. The
authors thank G Kylberg for his valuable comments. We also
thank BP and Frederic Billette for preparing the 2D BP model
available on the SEG website. An earlier version of this paper
was critically commented on by several anonymous review-
ers, which helped to improve its readability and quality.
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