Full-waveform Inversion Application In Different Geological Settings

After the synthetic data inversion examples, real 3D data sets have been undertaken by the industry for the last three years. As field data are dominated by P-waves, one feasible approach is to use acoustic approximation. Fullwaveform inversion (FWI) determines parameters related to the acoustic wave equation but mostly velocities by minimizing the misfit between the observed data and the model data. It has shown tremendous potential especially in 3D wide-offset acquisitions. This includes wide-azimuth streamer, ocean-bottom surveys and land type of geometry where the advantage of FWI has convinced the oil industry to pay close attention to the technology and apply it in complex geological settings. We demonstrate FWI applicability in different geological environments including marine from the Gulf of Mexico (GOM), the North Sea, and land data examples from desert type of settings for the geology.