Photo courtesy of the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau
W-10: Gathers for Modern Migration Algorithms
Thursday, 26 September 1:30 - 5:00 pm
Organizers: Mehmet Tanis, John Etgen, Yu Zhang, Paul Sava E-mail Contact: mehmet.tanis@bp.com
Common image point gathers are an important, even essential product of pre-stack depth migration. Not only do they get used for velocity model building but also for post migration image enhancement and for extracting reflector attribute information. Gathers have been traditionally computed in the source-receiver offset domain using Kirchhoff migration but with the emergence and use of wave equation methods, including RTM, angle domain gathers are becoming prevalent in imaging work below complex velocity overburden. In addition, less conventional gather types such as common focus point (CFP) or delayed imaging time are also finding more use.
This workshop will bring together key technical experts and specialists from oil companies, contractors and research institutions to share, discuss, and debate the latest results and experiences around geophysical, computational, and interpretational issues of pre-stack migration gathers in various domains, such as offset, angle, and CFP. It will also be devoted to looking for answers to a range of questions such as; what domain would gathers be better served? What are the key advantages and drawbacks for use of gathers in offset, angle and other domains? Do these hold true for full elastic and anisotropic media? Would angle domain gathers replace all other domains if computational constraints were no longer an issue? What deficiencies do the angle domain gathers have and what are the possible remedies? Are there less commonly used unconventional methods that address deficiencies of commonly used methods?
There will be a debate format where the advocates of each domain will make their case for its advantages over the alternatives. The opposition will have opportunity to rebut these and provide alternative view. We expect healthy challenge from the audience to all of the approaches!
