Joint inversion of the reflectivity and the velocity model

During linearized waveform inversion (LWI), the presence of small inaccuracies in the background subsurface model can lead to unfocused seismic events in the final image. The effect on the amplitude can mislead the interpretation. We have developed a joint inversion scheme in the model domain of the reflectivity and the background velocity model. The idea is to unify the inversion of the background and the reflectivity model into a single framework instead of treating them as decoupled problems. We find that, with this method, we can obtain a better estimate of the reflectivity than that obtained with conventional LWI. Conversely, the background model is improved by the joint inversion with the reflectivity in comparison with waveequation migration velocity analysis. We perform tests on 2D synthetics and 3D field data that demonstrate both benefits.

Automated summary

During linearized waveform inversion, small inaccuracies in the background subsurface model can cause unfocused seismic events and mislead the interpretation of amplitude. We have developed a joint inversion scheme to unify the inversion of the background and reflectivity models, resulting in a better estimate of reflectivity and improved background model.