Full-traveltime inversion

Many previously published wave-equation-based methods, which attempt to automatically invert traveltime or kinematic information in seismic data or migrated gathers for smooth velocities, suffer a common and severe problem — the inversions are involuntarily and unconsciously hijacked by amplitude information. To overcome this problem, we have developed a new wave-equation-based traveltime inversion methodology, referred to as full-traveltime (i.e., fully dependent on traveltime) inversion (FTI), to automatically estimate a kinematically accurate velocity model from seismic data. The key idea of FTI is to make the inversion fully dependent on traveltime information, and thus prevent amplitude interference during inversion. Under the assumption that velocity perturbations cause only traveltime changes, we have derived the FTI method in the data and image domains, which are applicable to transmitted arrivals and reflected waves, respectively. FTI does not require an accurate initial velocity model or low-frequency seismic data. Synthetic and field data tests demonstrate that FTI produces satisfactory inversion results, even when using constant velocity models as initials.