Interpretation of Sub-Salt Converted Waves

Summary Despite improvements in 3-D imaging capabilities through the use of Pre-stack Depth Migration (PreSDM), interpretation of the resultant images in the areas of complex salt bodies is confused by additional events that are not primary PP reflections. This paper analyzes the results of seismic imaging underneath steeply dipping salt flanks using real and synthetic datasets. Based on real data problems, imaging of acoustic and elastic synthetic data sets show that some of the sub-salt sedimentary section may include converted waves. A practical way to correctly image these sub-salt converted waves is introduced.