Geophys. J . In:.

(1995) 121,255-266

A new approach to pre-stack seismic processing

Sara Rajasekaran and George A. McMechan

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Center for Lithospheric Stirdies. The University of Texcis ut Dcdlns. PO B o x X306X8. Richardson, TX 750x3-0688, USA

Accepted 1994 September 5. Received 1993 January 11

SUMMARY
Pre-stack processing of seismic reflection data is significantly simplified if the data
organization is the same as that in which the data were acquired in the field; that is,
in time slices through common-source gathers. F o r an impulsive source, the entire
processing stream reduces to two elements: velocity analysis a n d reverse-time
prc-stack migration. Many of the steps that are applied as independent operations in
standard processing (including demultiplexing, sorting into common-midpoint
gathers, elevation corrections, near-surface velocity static corrections, first break
muting, ground roll removal, and both normal a n d dip move-out corrections) either
a r e eliminated, o r are applied implicitly during migration. This approach is ideally
suited to parallel processing, a n d can be implemented in machines with small
processor memories.
Key words: pre-stack, reverse-time, seismic imaging, seismic processing.

stacked section that is kinematically equivalent to that which

INTRODUCTION
The goals of this paper are to review the main limitations in
standard reflection seismic processing and then to consider
processing from a different philosophical point of view that
overcomes many of these limitations. First, we must
acknowledge that standard processing (Sheriff & Geldart
1983; Hatton, Worthington & Makin 1986; Yilmaz 1987),
especially with augmentations such as dip move-out (Hale
1984), works well and economically for the bulk of the data
that satisfy the assumptions for which that processing was
designed. We are concerned here with the remainder, which
contain the effects of large elevation and velocity statics,
strong lateral velocity variations, steep dips, very wide
recording apertures, or crooked lines. For these problems,
we need to be more creative. Fortunately, all of these can be
directly tackled, and (fairly satisfactorily) solved in a simple,
elegant way, with relatively few limiting assumptions. The
trade-off is that we must go from post-stack to pre-stack
imaging, from a data organization consisting of a sequence
of traces to a sequence of time slices, from common-
midpoint gathers to common-source gathers, and to relying
completely on the wave equation for all operations. This
approach naturally integrates and collapses most of the steps
in standard seismic processing (Table 1).
LIMITATIONS IN S T A N D A R D P R O C E S S I N G
It is assumed, in standard seismic processing, that the input
data are in traces, each associated with a particular
source-receiver pair. The main objective is to approximate a
would be produced if each trace were recorded by
coincident sources and receivers (i.e. a zero-offset section).
Two time corrections are applied to each trace to
approximate zero-offset data, one static and the other
dynamic. Static corrections compensate for traveltime
anomalies caused by differences in elevations and
near-surface velocities at the source and receiver positions
(e.g. Wiggins, Larner & Wisecup 1976). At large offsets, or
where strong near-surface velocity variations are present,
reflections from shallow structure are incident at angles so
far from vertical that a single correction is no longer
sufficient (Wenzel 1988; Shtivelman & Canning 1988). In
general, the static correction is not one number, but is a
function of incident angle for each location, so that the usual
static correction is inappropriate for such data.
A dynamic, time-dependent correction is applied to
remove the propagation time differences caused by the
source-receiver offset. This ‘normal move-out’ correction is
a function of offset, travel time and the rms velocity above
the reflector. The velocity function for move-out correction
is computed by assuming that each reflection in a
common-midpoint gather has a hyperbolic traveltime qurve
and is subjectively chosen as the one that produces a stack
with maximum coherence (Taner & Koehler 1969; Taner,
Cook & Neidell 1970). The reflection traveltime is not
hyperbolic when strong dips, high vertical velocity gradients,
lateral velocity changes, or large offsets are present (Lynn &
Claerbout 1982; Faye & Jeannot 1986; Yilmaz 1987, p. 355).
In these situations, information is lost due to destructive
interference in stacking.

255
256 S. Rajasekaran and G. A . Mcklechan

Table 1. Comparison of steps in standard and proposed pre- including tapering at the edges of the data aperture and
stack processing. reversal of the time axis;
(2) estimation of the near-surface P-wave velocity
STANDARD PROCESSING PROPOSED PKKS'I'ACK PROCESSING
distribution by tomographic imaging of first break times;
(3) reverse-time pre-stack depth migration of each
1) Demultiplex I ) Preprocessing
shot-gather in turn, plus an optional alternation of migration

2) Preprocessing
3) Elevation static corrections
4) Common mid-point sort
2 ) Velocity Analysis
3) Pre-stack depth migration
4 ) Stacking
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with adjustment of the deep velocity structure based on
focusing analysis: and, finally,
(4) stacking over the individual migrated sections for all
sources to produce a final depth section.

5 ) Velocity analysis
6) Residual statics correction
7) Normal moveout correction
8) Stacking
9) Post-stack migration
For structure with significant dips, a dip move-out
correction is usually applied after normal move-out to
improve the quality of the subsequent stack (e.g. Hale 1984;
Deregowski 1986); this removes the dip-dependence of
stacking velocities, but is inadequate when strong lateral
velocity variation and surface topography are involved
(Yilmaz 1987; Hale 1988).
Once a n optimal stacking velocity function is found for a
common-midpoint gather, a single. stacked trace is obtained
by weighted summation over all the traces in the gather
(Mayne 1Y62). Post-stack migration positions reflectors in
their true spatial positions if accurate migration velocities
are available, but the migrations cannot recover information
already lost by stacking (Kuhn 1985).
An alternative that avoids most of the limiting
assumptions in standard processing is wave-equation-based
pre-stack processing (Jain & Wren 1980; Reshef & Kosloff
1986; Chang & McMechan 1986; Esmersoy & Oristaglio
1988; Berkhout, Van D e r Schoot & Romijn 1990:
Blacquikre, Duijndam & Romijn 1991). This is likely to be
a better solution, primarily because it involves fewer
assumptions, and also because those that remain are
associated only with choices made concerning the details of
the implementations of various steps, rather than with the
underlying principles.
THE P R E - S T A C K W A V E - E Q U A T I O N
SYSTEM
In this section, we first list the steps in a viable pre-stack
processing sequence and then discuss each in turn.
Overview
In general, our processing system operates on time slices
through common-source gathers, rather than on traces
through common-midpoint gathers, which is convenient
because this is the field format. The steps are as follows:
(1) preprocessing, including editing, filtering of noise and
geometrical projection of the survey to a plane (if we are
dealing with 2-D processing) and data conditioning,
Although stacking is left until the very last step, all the
advantages of stacking (especially noise suppression) are
retained.
Topographic and velocity static corrections, first break
muting, and ground roll suppression are implicitly applied
during migration rather than as separate explicit processing
steps. All of these pre-processing and data conditioning
operations have a functional equivalent to those in standard
processing, but they occur near the end, rather than the
beginning, of the sequence.
A major unifying concept is that only one (interval)
velocity distribution is determined, and this is used for all
steps; separate velocities are not required for statics,
move-out corrections, stacking or migration. This has the
added aesthetic characteristic of complete internal consis-
tency and is physically, rather than empirically, justified.
Estimation of near-surface velocity by tomography
The first main operation is tomographic imaging of the
near-surface structure. This is done using time picks from
the refracted arrivals as data (de Amorim, Hubral & Tygel
1987; Hampson & Russell 1988). In principle, there is n o
change required in algorithms for first break picking from
time-slice rather than trace data; the search direction is
horizontal rather than vertical, but the rest is the same. In
our implementation, tomography proceeds by alternating
ray tracing and simultaneous iterative reconstruction of the
velocity distribution (Zhu & McMechan 1989). Fig. 1 shows
a representative example. Synthetic traveltime data (Fig. l a )
were computed, by ray tracing, from 21 randomly spaced
sources on the surface of the model (Fig. 1b). The model has
a low-velocity surface layer of variable thickness, which
grades into a higher velocity basement, and contains the
actual topography of the free surface. After three iterations
from a simple (linear vertical velocity gradient) starting
model, the velocity estimate (Fig. lc) is very similar to the
correct solution (Fig. lb).
Refraction tomography is applicable only t o the
determination of near-surface velocities (Ruhl & Luschen
1990), and so other approaches, such as tau-p analysis
(Stoffa, Diebold & Buhl 1982) or focusing analysis
(Gardner, French & Matzuk 1974; Faye & Jeannot 1986;
Al-Yahya 1989), are required for greater depths. W e have
used the tomography to solve, not for the statics, but for the
velocity distribution that produces the statics. This is done
without redatuming; the source and receiver positions used
are the same as those in the field, so elevation corrections
are not required.
Having established the near-surface velocity distribution,
elevation and velocity statics corrections will be made
 A new approuch to pre-stuck seisniic processirig 257

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ro
0

P I I S 1 T 1 ON [ KM 1
, $1 . 0 0 1 .oo 2 .oo 3 .OO 4 .oo 5 . (1 (1

C
.r
( 1
ITERATION 3

Figure I. Tomographic estimation o l near-surlace velocities. Synthetic traveltimes ( a ) computed by ray tracing lroni 2 1 randomly \p:~ced
sources on thc surface o f model ( h ) were inputted t o producc the tomographic iinagc (c). The solution is not reliable ;it the edges since no rays
penetrated thcsc rcgions. Each iteration consists of a ray trace plus a sequence of I X velocity updates by thc simultaneous iterative
rcconstruction technique. After Zhu & McMechan ( 1989).
258 S. Rrrjrrsekrrrari and G. A . McMectian
automatically (and implicitly) during the wavelield cx-
trapolation in migration. t o incorporate directly the
velocity-dependent a s well as the position-dependent effects
of the shallow structure o n the waves passing through it
(McMechan & Chen 1990): see the section on static
corrections below.
Data conditioning
,.I litn e x t step is t o condition each common-source gather in
preparation for migration. This consists of applying a space
xid time taper to the data t o reduce the edge effects 01 the
linitc ;iperturc and reversill ol the time inis.
Although the reverse-time extrapoliition ol the data. in
niigration. is by finite differences in thc current implcmenta-
tion. this does not imply that the data require interpolation
to be evenly spaced with an offset increment equal t o that o f
the finite-dilfcrence grid. We find that cxlrapolation is stable
i t the data arc sp;itially undiased (i.e. less than a
halt-wavelength apart) (('hang & McMcchan 1901). In the
context of' second-order finite differences. this is about 10
grid points. 'The grid increment. in turn. is determined by
consideration o f linite-dift'erence stability and grid dispersion
requircmcnts. and these depend on thc velocity of the
medium ;ind the frequency content o f the data.
At this step. one would normally also remove all the
e n e r ~ y that does not satisfy the excitation-time imaging
condition lor pre-stack migration: these include the surface
waves and the first breaks. l h i s is typically done by filtering
;ind muting. An alternative. wave-equation-b~ised approach
c;in he derived by noting that these waves correspond to
approximately horizontal propagation in the very near-
surface structure. Thus. they may be effectively separated
from deeper reflections by downward continuation of the
recorded wavefield by reverse-time extrapolation to a depth
beneath which these waves propagate (McMechan & Sun
1991: Sun & McMcchan 1901). The subhorizontally
travelling waves are left behind in the shallow part of the
model.
Subsequent upward continuation of the wavefield
rcconstructs the original surt'ace-recorded wavefield with the
subhorizontally travelling waves removed (Fig. 2). Only a
very simple velocity distribution is required for the wavefield
extrapolation; n o net distortion is produced as both
downward and upward continuations are performed using
the same velocity model. The mechanics of this are nearly
identical to pre-stack wave-equation datuming (Schultz &
Sherwood 1080; Berryhill 1984), but the data and the
purpose are different.
In the context of pre-stack migration, the downward
continuation step is already implicit in the extrapolation part
of the migration of a common-source gather, and the
upward continuation is not necessary because the near-
surface energy will remain at the top of the section at all
times. Thus, first break muting and ground roll filtering d o
not have to be separate operations.
Reverse-time migration of common-source gathers
The next step is pre-stack reverse-time migration of each
cotnmon-source gather. This has been implemented in both
acoustic and elastic forms (Chang & McMechan 1986; Sun &
McMcchan 1986): for simplicity. here we consider only thc
acoustic form (e.g. McMechan 19x9).
To begin. consider the forward problem. Each diffracting
point in the medium is treated as il secondary sourcc that is
excited by the arrival of the direct wavefront from the
primary source. Energy is scattered by each point at the
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one-way traveltime from the source t o that point: this time
can be computed by ii ray trace from the source. All points
that lie o n a locus o f constant time (that is. o n a wavefront)
are excited simultaneously in the forward problem. and will
be imaged simultaneously in migration. This is the basis o f
the imaging condition for pre-stack migration.
For migration. the recorded wavclicld. after prc-
proccssing. is extrapolated backward i n time by driving the
linite-difference mesh with the time reverse of the trace
recorded at each recorder (Chang & McMechan 1986). The
diffracted and reflected waves travel back in time through
the medium and coalesce at the time and the spatial location
at which they were originally scattered. and then defocus
(Fig. 3). The dashed trajectories in Fig. 3 contain all points
a t which energy was scattered at the same times in the
forward problem; these are the imaging conditions. The
migrated image is constructed by extracting the amplitudes
along the appropriate dashed-line trajectory at every
finite-diflerence time-step in the reverse-time propagation
and storing these at the same spatial location in a separate
array. If the velocity distribution is not well known, the
energy will be extracted slightly before or after the time of
best focusing. This provides a mechanism for velocity
estimation a t depths greater than those for which velocities
were obtained by tomography: velocity perturbations and
migration may be alternated to iterate toward a best-focused
image (Bording et ul. 1987).
Static corrections
Finally, consider static effects due to surface topography and
near-surface velocity variations. These may be accurately
compensated for, in an implicit way, during pre-stack
reverse-time migration of common-source gathers. Receiver
statics are automatically incorporated by extrapolating the
observed data from the actual recorder positions; source
statics are automatically incorporated by computing the
excitation-time imaging conditions from the actual source
positions (McMechan & Chen 1990). Schultz & Sherwood
(1 980) presented the corresponding concepts (for velocity
statics only) using downward continuation rather than
reverse-time extrapolation. Reshef (1991) combined both
velocity and elevation statics in a downward continuation
(depth extrapolation) formulation.
Consider the model in Fig. 4(b); it contains strong
variations in both free-surface topography and near-surface
velocity. These will produce both short- and long-
wavelength source and receiver statics. Pre-stack migration
of the synthetic acoustic, common-source data (Fig. 4a) for
the representative source point A (Fig. 4b) produces the
partial image in Fig. 4(c). Data for all 13 source points (Fig.
4b) are similarly individually migrated: the partial images
are then stacked to produce the final composite image (Fig.
4d).
In modelling (or, in a real world, in field data acquisition),
the common-source seismograms are extracted at points
 DISTRNCE IKM 1 DISTRNCE (KMI Jl .oo D I S1 T.oo
R N C E I2K.ooM ) 3 .OO
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0
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c
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RAW PROCESSED' DIFFERENCE

Figure 2. Depth-filtering of direct waves and ground roll. The rau (vertical component) data ( a ) are d o u n n a r d continued to kolnte the deep rellcctions. Subsequent upward
continuation gives a depth-filtered reconstruction ( h ) 0 1 the data. with the direct ~ i i v c s(Pl. P2. S ) and ground roll ( R ) removed. ( c ) I \ the dillcrcncc bctwccn ( a ) and (h). and $0
contains the energy that HIIS removed. After Sun & McMechan (1991 ).

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260 S. Rnjasekuran and C. A . McMechan

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--t
Y Y Y
t2 ti, t1
Figure 3. Reverse-time migration for a point diffractor. At each tinir-stcp in the reverse-time extrapolation. a (constant-timc) strip of
amplitudes is extracted from the common-source seismogram ( v t ) prolile and is inserted. as boundary conditions. into the ( y z )
coniputation;tl grid a t the recorder points (see thc dashed arrows). The xattcrcd waves (the heavy solid line) propagate backward in timc; they
focu\ at limc I,,,,. and then dclocus. Tlic dashed trajectories arc the loci 01 points t h a t satisly the imaging condition at each time; the amplitudes
of Ihesc points :ire sarcd to construct the migrated image. Alter McMcchan (19x9).

along the free surface. During reverse-time migration, the
time reversal of these data synchronously drives the
finite-dillerenec mesh lrom the same rcceiver points. There
is n o rcdatuming. Thus, ii separate topographic correction is
not needed since the topography is part of the model. A
separate velocity (static) correction is not needed, since the
near-surface velocity distribution. as estimated by the
tomography, is part of the model. The fact that the
lowermost (flat) reflector has been correctly imaged (Fig.
4d) indicates that all effects of the complicated structures
lying above it are compensated for, and implies that all
deeper reflectors could also be correctly migrated.
PROCESSING OF SYNTHETIC DATA FOR A
TEST S U R V E Y L I N E
T o illustrate the new system described above. in this section
we present the processing of a line of 20 synthetic
common-source gathers (Fig. 5 ) . To simplify the modelling.
we simulated shots a t various positions along a fixcd
recording cable, but any other desired geometry could have
been used. The model (Fig. 5 ) is elastic, s o the data (Fig. 6)
contain direct and reflected shear waves. and ground roll. as
well as direct and reflected compressional waves. To
simulate standard field data. only the vertical response
component is kept for processing.
TO begin the processing, first break times from all 20
common-source gathers were inputted into tomographic
imaging o f the near-surface compressional-wave velocity
distribution (Fig. 7). The final velocities (at iteration 16) are
a smooth estimate of the correct solution. As an
independent check, vertical two-way traveltimes were
computed for the model down to 0.4 km depth at each
iteration, and compared with those for the correct solution.
The average residual for the initial model was 4 0 ms, and,
at iteration 16, less than 1 ms. At iteration 16, even the
low-velocity zone near 0.15 km depth. at the left side of the
model. is visible. 'The deeper velocities may be poorly
constrained initially (being based perhaps on other
geological or geophysical assumptions, or other methods of
velocity analysis): these may be updated by iterative
migration and focusing analysis, as necessary (as described
above). Fig. 8 (top panel) contains the composite velocity
distribution used for migration.
Each common-source gather is migrated independently
(although these migrations may be done simultaneously in a
parallel processing environment), using the scalar wave
equation to extrapolate the data. and ray tracing to compute
the image conditions. The partial images produced by
migration o f the three representative common-shot gathers
in Fig. 6 are shown in Fig. 8; the main difference between
these images and previously published results of pre-stack
migration of common-source data are the high-amplitude
artefacts at very shallow depths. The latter correspond to
the direct waves and ground roll (which have not been
removed prior to migration), and lie in the part of the
migrated image that would correspond to muted data in a
standard stacked section.
Figure 9 (top panel) contains the composite migrated
depth section produced by stacking over all 20 partial
sections. A single high-pass filter, applied as a post-
migration operation, effectively removes the contributions of
the direct waves and ground roll to the image (compare the
top and centre panels in Fig. 9). This is much more cost
effective than the filtering and muting of each common-shot
or common-midpoint gather before stacking, as fewer traces
are present after migration and stacking. The filter is
optional as the artefacts are all confined to depths <1 km
and so d o not interfere with the visibility of deeper targets:
this unique depth separation is the natural consequence of
 A new approach to pre-stack seismic processing 261
extrapolation with the wave equation (as described above),
DISTHNCE ( K M ) and does not occur, for example, with ray-based imaging.
such as Kirchhoff migration. Comparison o f the filtered
A
(1 m o o 0 0'75 1 5@ , a result with the correct solution (Fig. 9, lower panel) shows
good correspondence; very shallow reflections become
visible (and interpretable) after filtering. The fact that the

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images of the lower reflectors are f a t indicates that all
statics associated with the shallow structure are correctly
compensated for.
At this point, focusing analysis could be performed o n the
deeper reflections to adjust the velocities prior to
remigration. We have not carried o u t this step in t h i b
example. a s the migration is already satisfactory: i t is a n
0 optional step. and is beyond the scope o f t h i b papcr. It is
0 also potentially possible, at the expense o f more iterations,
to replace the tomographic estimation o f near-surface
velocities with focusing analysis, but this has n o t been
tested: this alternative may n o t be as stable ;IS tomogrq'liy
because ol' the presence of the near-surface artefacts.

71
A I n summary, we have described a highly streamlined
b properties o f the wave equation and so naturally integratus
I interval velocities. No first break muting is required because
-4
ul
Figure 4. Implicit velocity and elevation static corrections. The
representative synthetic common-source data (a) from shot point A
(in h) contain strong near-surface vclocity and clcvation statics.
Prc-stack migration o f thcsc data, by extrapolation from the actual
topographic surface, through a reasonable estimate of the velocity
distribution (b). produces a partial image (c). Stacking the partial
images from all shots [at the stars in (b)] gives the composite image
(d). After McMechan & Chcn (1990).
DISCUSSION A N D SYNOPSIS
processing philosophy that takes full advantage o f the
and collapses most of the steps in standard processing.
There is very tight coupling between the acquisition
parameters and geometry on the one hand. and the
processing parameters and geometry o n the other. The
inverse problem of data processing is now almost exactly the
reverse o f the data acquisitiun. If these two could be made
mutually inverse, we would have the optimal system.
The only velocities used are in a single, interval velocity
distribution. There is n o demultiplexing because it operates
on the same time slices that were recorded in the field.
There is no midpoint sorting because it operates o n
pre-stack common-source gathers, again, as recorded in the
field coordinates; tomography and data extrapolation are
both from the actual recording surface. There are n o
separate velocity statics because both the data extrapolation
and computation o f image conditions usc near-surface
first breaks travel horizontally during extrapolation. N o
ground roll filtering is required because ground roll also
travels horizontally during extrapolation. N o normal
move-out o r dip move-out corrections are involved as the
migration is pre-stack. N o time-to-depth conversion is
required because reverse-time migration is ;I depth
migration.
The cost of pre-stack processing is greater than that of
standard processing. However, pre-stack migration is not
going to be used every day, but only for problem date sets
that cannot be adequately addressed in the standard sysfem.
Since each shot gather is handled in time slices, the ambunt
of data that resides in the CPU at any given time is less than
in standard processing. The tinite-difference grids arc large.
but combining reverse-time extrapolation with downward
continuation to break the grid into arbitrarily small pieces
changes the limiting factor from CPU space t o disk space
(Harris 8r McMechan 1992). In fact, this can be
implemented on a PC o r a workstation. Since this software
system is very small relative to a standard processing system,
262 S. Rujusekarun and G. A. McMechun
RELRTIVE HORIZONTRL POSITION
1..00 2,. 00
0
-0
x
U
0
P-VELOCITY [ K M / S I
2.0 2-5 3-0
Figure 5. An elastic model. The grey scale indicates compressional wave velocities in km s I : corresponding shear velocities are obtained by
multiplyins hy 3 ' '. Density is constant. Stars indicate 20 sourcc positions. Representative common-sourcc gathers for the labclled sources ( S ,
10 and IS) are shown in Fig. h.
it will also he relatively economical t o maintain. It is also
less expensive t o use than most other pre-stack systems
because o f the reduction in the number of steps involved:
the full data set needs to bc read o n l y once. Processing o f
cacti shot in the example in Figs X and 9 t o o k 65 s o f CPIJ
timc in a single CRAY-YMP processor: 18s for image
condition calculation. 20 s lor pre-processing, and 27 s for
pre-stack migration.
There are implications for data organization and
management i f this system is to be optimized, as the data
unit is a common-source gather. rather than a trace. Traces
never need be constructed: even auxiliary operations such as
editing and plotting can be performed easily on time slices if
the data are perceived simply as a 2-D distribution of
energy. See Figs 2 and 6 for examples of 'traceless'
grey-scale displays of common-source gathers, for which the
data are accessed in time slices.
One element that is conspicuously absent from the
proposed processing stream is deconvolution. The logical
form for this to take would be somc form of
depth-dependent wavelet shaping applied, a s post-
processing, t o the final composite migrated section. as the
inputs are not traces. This could be incorporated as part
of the post-migration filtering shown in Fig. 9. In practice,
pre-stack processing will probably not be performed unless
standard processing has failed: thus. B deconvolved data set
( a s well ;is other useful auxiliary information. such a s initial
velocity estimates) would normally be available.
A side benefit of this approach is the potential for data
processing in thc field at the time o f acquisition. Quality
control in the field could bc at the level of the migrated
partial image. The system is ideally suited t o parallel
processing as each common-source gather is processed
independently. Parallelism can also be exploited within each
common-source gather: Levin (1986) presents a discussion in
the post-stack reverse-time context. Parallel computation
(KMI
4;OO 5 .oo 6 -00
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3-5 4.0 4.5
will make this approach much more competitive in
production environments in the near future.
Other advantages are that there is n o need for crooked
line processing o r binning if implementation is in 3-D
(Chang & McMechan I9YO). therc arc n o dip restrictions it'
the full two-way wave equation is used for extrapolation,
and there is no need for separate processing of shear waves
if implementation uses the elastic wave equation (Sun &
McMechan 1986; Teng & Dai 1989).
In the present implementation, extrapolation of the data
is by second-order finite differencing (e.g. McMechan 198S),
but other numerical approaches such as higher-order finite
differencing (Dablain 1986). finite elements (Teng & Dai
1989), wavenumber solutions (Loewenthal & Mufti 1983), or
pseudo-spectral solutions (Fornberg 1987) may be substit-
uted without altering the concepts. Similarly, the one-way
source-to-diffractor traveltime computations required for the
imaging condition can be implemented by two-point ray
tracing (Um & Thurber 1987), ray shooting (McMechan &
Fuis 1987), wavefront tracing by solution o f the cikonal
equation (Vidale 1988). or by using a wave-equation
solution (Loewenthal & Hu 1991). The CPU time estimate
above for image condition calculation was for the latter: this
was found to be fastest in a vector processor.
The synthetic examples above provide an initial demon-
stration of feasibility that motivates application to real data:
the latter is in progress and will be prescnted elsewhere.
Most field data are inadequately sampled (especially in
space) for wavefield extrapolation and so require interpola-
tion (Noble & Tarantola 1991). Also. picking traveltimes for
tomography can be very challenging. Picking in the
common-offset as well as the common-source domain, and
comparing the picks, is one way of ensuring consistency in
picks.
Pre-stack migration methods are meant to be a solution
for the imaging problems of data from tectonically complex
 A new approach to pre-stack seismic processing 263

R E L R T I V E HORIZONTFlL POSITIO4N5dKN) I. RELRTIVE HORIZONTRL POSITION [ K M I

g.50 I .so 2 .so 3 .SO 50 g.50 I .so 2.50 3 .SO 4 .so 5 .so
0
0
01 I

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c

rn
rn
0 0

SHOT 5 SHOT 10

R E L R T I V E H O R I Z O N T R L 3P!$ I T I O N i KM 1
d i0 1 .so 2.50 4 .so 5.50
0
0

O
W
0

-lo
I.

=g
m
,-.
Cn
- 0

LD
0

-
N
0

rn
0

SHOT 15

Figure 6. Representative common-sourcc gathers. These arc the vertical components of displacement a t the surface o f the model i n Fig. 5?
computed by elastic finite-differenccs. Direct compressional and shear waves. ground roll and retlcctions are all visible. Each gather h a \ 500
rcccivcrs and 1500 time samples.

areas. Data quality from such areas is invariably less than
optimal due t o data acquisition difficulties, lack o f SCJUrce
penetration, and scattering and off-line noise. Noise
reduction can be as crucial for pre-stack processing as it is
for conventional processing.
Where near-surface velocity is highly varying in 3-D, or
surface topography is cxtreme, the wave propagation is
complicated (Al-Husseini, Glover & Barley 1981). so it
may be necessary to mute or filter the direct and surface
waves as part o f data conditioning. rather than rcly on qcpth
k
filtering.
Finally, the pre-stack approach presented here is ncII
poised t o take advantage of future developments in
lull-wavefield inversion, Prc-stuck migration and inversion
arc very similar (Stolt & Wcglein 14SS); i n fact, migration is
essentially one iteration of' iterative inversion (Mora IY89).
The main differences are that, in inversion. the residual
wavcfield rather than the complete recorded wavefield is
264 S. Rajasekarnn m d G. A . McMechnn

R E l - F I T I V E H O R I ZONTFlL POS I T I ON [ KM 1
1 .oo 2 .oo 3 -00 4 .oo 5 .oo 6 -00

I
-

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x
30
-Kn
0
CORRECT SOLUTION

m a .oo 1 .oo 2 .oo 3 .oo 4 .oo 5 .uu 6 .OO

2.0
-a
0
INITIQL MODEL

06.1 *oo 1 .oo 2 .oo 3 .oo 4 .oo 5 .oo 6.00

m. '
a0
40
71
-x
3 0.
-ul
0
ITERRTION 1

1 .oo 2 .oo 3 .OO 4 .oo 5 .oo 6 .OO

-m
0
ITERRTION 8

1 .oo 2 .oo 3 .oo 4 .OO 5 -00 6*OO

-a
0
I T E R R T I O N 16

Figure 7. Velocity estimation by tomography. The near-surlacc coinprcssional velocity estimatc at iteration 16 defines the upper portion of the
velocity distribution used for migration. The deeper velocities are relativcly poorly constrained, as are thosc at the edges (as the rays d o not
adequately sample these regions). Each iteration consists of a ray trace plus a sequence of seven velocity updates by the simultaneous iterative
reconstruction technique. Note that the vclocity grey levels here are not the same as those in Fig. 5.
 A new approach to pre-stack seismic processing 265

RELRTIVE HORIZONTRL POSITION [KMI RELRTIVE HORIZONTRL POSITION [KMI

d .so I .so 7 .so 3.50 4 .so 5 .SO ,&.so I .so 2.50 3 .SO 4 .sn

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/gji/article/121/1/255/601840 by Operational Support, Ministry of Justice, Saskatchewan user on 30 August 2023
0 0
0 0
M I GRRT ION VELOC ITY MIGRRTED SECTION [ R R W I

RFL R T I V E H O R I Z O N T A L P O S I T I O N [ K M I I .50 2.50 3 .SO 4 .50 s .so

0 MIGRRTED SECTION ( F I L T E R E D 1
0
SHOT 5 IMRGE

-0 .so 1 .50 2.50 3 .SO 4.50 5.50

0
0
MODEL (CORRECT S O L U T I O N 1
0
SHOT 10 IMRGE
Figure 9. Compositc dcpth-migrated images. The high-amplitude
artefacts ( D and G ) at the shallow depths in the upper panel arc
related to the direct waves and ground roll. respectively. The
11 .so I .so 2 .so 3.50 4.50 s .so
position of the deeper rcflcctions in the linal (filtcrcd) section in thc
centre pancl compare well wilh their positions in the correct
solution (the lower panel). Thc grey lcvels in the lower pancl
denote cornprcssional-wave velocities defined by the scale in Fig. 5.

0
0
SHOT 15 IMFlGE
Figure 8. Representative migrated partial images. These are for the
thrcc common-sourcc gathers shown in Fig. 6 . The high-amplitude
artefacts at the shallow depths are related to the direct waves ( D )
and ground roll (G), which were not removed prior t o migration.
The grey levels in the upper panel denote compressional-wave
velocitics defined by the scale in Fig. 5.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The research leading to this paper was funded by the
sponsors of the UT-Dallas Geophysical Consortium, the
UT-Dallas Parallel Computing Consortium, and CRAY
Research, Inc. Most of the computations were performed on
a CRAY-YMP at the University of Texas Center for High
Performance Computing. The manuscript was expertly
typed by Charlotte Stromer and Anna Marie Radasinbvich.
This paper is contribution no. 790 from the Program in
Geosciences at the University of Texas at Dallas.

extrapolated, and model parameter updates are determined
from the resulting migrated image (e.g. Tarantola 1984,
1986). Thus all the concepts developed here can also be
incorporated into a full-wavefield inversion system.
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