Full waveform inversion based on hybrid gradient

The low-wavenumber components in the gradient of full waveform inversion(FWI)play a vital role in the stability of the inversion.However,when FWI is implemented in some high frequencies and current models are not far away from the real velocity model,an excessive number of low-wavenumber components in the gradient will also reduce the convergence rate and inversion accuracy.To solve this problem,this paper firstly derives a formula of scattering angle weighted gradient in FWI,then proposes a hybrid gradient.The hybrid gradient combines the conventional gradient of FWI with the scattering angle weighted gradient in each inversion frequency band based on an empirical formula derived herein.Using weighted hybrid mode,we can retain some low-wavenumber components in the initial lowfrequency inversion to ensure the stability of the inversion,and use more high-wavenumber components in the high-frequency inversion to improve the convergence rate.The results of synthetic data experiment demonstrate that compared to the conventional FWI,the FWI based on the proposed hybrid gradient can effectively reduce the low-wavenumber components in the gradient under the premise of ensuring inversion stability.It also greatly enhances the convergence rate and inversion accuracy,especially in the deep part of the model.And the field marine seismic data experiment also illustrates that the FWI based on hybrid gradient(HGFWI)has good stability and adaptability.

Linearized waveform inversion for vertical transversely isotropic elastic media:Methodology and multi-parameter crosstalk analysis

Seismic migration and inversion are closely related techniques to portray subsurface images and identify hydrocarbon reservoirs.Seismic migration aims at obtaining structural images of subsurface geologic discontinuities.More specifically,seismic migration estimates the reflectivity function(stacked average reflectivity or pre-stack angle-dependent reflectivity)from seismic reflection data.On the other hand,seismic inversion quantitatively estimates the intrinsic rock properties of subsurface formulations.Such seismic inversion methods are applicable to detect hydrocarbon reservoirs that may exhibit lateral variations in the inverted parameters.Although there exist many differences,pre-stack seismic migration is similar with the first iteration of the general linearized seismic inversion.Usually,seismic migration and inversion techniques assume an acoustic or isotropic elastic medium.Unconventional reservoirs such as shale and tight sand formation have notable anisotropic property.We present a linearized waveform inversion(LWI)scheme for weakly anisotropic elastic media with vertical transversely isotropic(VTI)symmetry.It is based on two-way anisotropic elastic wave equation and simultaneously inverts for the localized perturbations(ΔVp_(0)/Vp_(0)/Vs_(0)/Vs_(0)/,Δ∈,Δδ)from the long-wavelength reference model.Our proposed VTI-elastic LWI is an iterative method that requires a forward and an adjoint operator acting on vectors in each iteration.We derive the forward Born approximation operator by perturbation theory and adjoint operator via adjoint-state method.The inversion has improved the quality of the images and reduces the multi-parameter crosstalk comparing with the adjoint-based images.We have observed that the multi-parameter crosstalk problem is more prominent in the inversion images for Thomsen anisotropy parameters.Especially,the Thomsen parameter is the most difficult to resolve.We also analyze the multi-parameter crosstalk using scattering radiation patterns.The linearized waveform inversion for VTI-elastic media presented in this article provides quantitative information of the rock properties that has the potential to help identify hydrocarbon reservoirs.

A Rayleigh Wave Globally Optimal Full Waveform Inversion Framework Based on GPU Parallel Computing

Conventional gradient-based full waveform inversion (FWI) is a local optimization, which is highly dependent on the initial model and prone to trapping in local minima. Globally optimal FWI that can overcome this limitation is particularly attractive, but is currently limited by the huge amount of calculation. In this paper, we propose a globally optimal FWI framework based on GPU parallel computing, which greatly improves the efficiency, and is expected to make globally optimal FWI more widely used. In this framework, we simplify and recombine the model parameters, and optimize the model iteratively. Each iteration contains hundreds of individuals, each individual is independent of the other, and each individual contains forward modeling and cost function calculation. The framework is suitable for a variety of globally optimal algorithms, and we test the framework with particle swarm optimization algorithm for example. Both the synthetic and field examples achieve good results, indicating the effectiveness of the framework. .

Multi-scale seismic full waveform inversion in the frequency-domain with a multi-grid method

Although full waveform inversion in the frequency domain can overcome the local minima problem in the time direction, such problem still exists in the space direction because of the media subsurface complexity. Based on the optimal steep descent methods, we present an algorithm which combines the preconditioned bi-conjugated gradient stable method and the multi-grid method to compute the wave propagation and the gradient space. The multiple scale prosperity of the waveform inversion and the multi-grid method can overcome the inverse problems local minima defect and accelerate convergence. The local inhomogeneous three-hole model simulated results and the Marmousi model certify the algorithm effectiveness.

Improved hybrid iterative optimization method for seismic full waveform inversion

In full waveform inversion （FWI）, Hessian information of the misfit function is of vital importance for accelerating the convergence of the inversion; however, it usually is not feasible to directly calculate the Hessian matrix and its inverse. Although the limited memory Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno （L-BFGS） or Hessian-free inexact Newton （HFN） methods are able to use approximate Hessian information, the information they collect is limited. The two methods can be interlaced because they are able to provide Hessian information for each other; however, the performance of the hybrid iterative method is dependent on the effective switch between the two methods. We have designed a new scheme to realize the dynamic switch between the two methods based on the decrease ratio （DR） of the misfit function （objective function）, and we propose a modified hybrid iterative optimization method. In the new scheme, we compare the DR of the two methods for a given computational cost, and choose the method with a faster DR. Using these steps, the modified method always implements the most efficient method. The results of Marmousi and overthrust model testings indicate that the convergence with our modified method is significantly faster than that in the L-BFGS method with no loss of inversion quality. Moreover, our modified outperforms the enriched method by a little speedup of the convergence. It also exhibits better efficiency than the HFN method.

Frequency-domain auto-adapting full waveform inversion with blended source and frequency-group encoding

As a high quality seismic imaging method, full waveform inversion （FWI） can accurately reconstruct the physical parameter model for the subsurface medium. However, application of the FWI in seismic data processing is computationally expensive, especially for the three-dimension complex medium inversion. Introducing blended source technology into the frequency-domain FWI can greatly reduce the computational burden and improve the efficiency of the inversion. However, this method has two issues： first, crosstalk noise is caused by interference between the sources involved in the encoding, resulting in an inversion result with some artifacts; second, it is more sensitive to ambient noise compared to conventional FWI, therefore noisy data results in a poor inversion. This paper introduces a frequency-group encoding method to suppress crosstalk noise, and presents a frequency- domain auto-adapting FWI based on source-encoding technology. The conventional FWI method and source-encoding based FWI method are combined using an auto-adapting mechanism. This improvement can both guarantee the quality of the inversion result and maximize the inversion efficiency.

Prismatic and full-waveform joint inversion

Prismatic wave is that it has three of which is located at the reflection interface reflection paths and two reflection points, one and the other is located at the steep dip angle reflection layer, so that contains a lot of the high and steep reflection interface information that primary cannot reach. Prismatic wave field information can be separated by applying Born approximation to traditional reverse time migration profile, and then the prismatic wave is used to update velocity to improve the inversion efficiency for the salt dame flanks and some other high and steep structure. Under the guidance of this idea, a prismatic waveform inversion method is proposed （abbreviated as PWI）. PWI has a significant drawback that an iteration time of PWI is more than twice as that of FWI, meanwhile, the full wave field information cannot all be used, for this problem, we propose a joint inversion method to combine prismatic waveform inversion with full waveform inversion. In this method, FWI and PWI are applied alternately to invert the velocity. Model tests suggest that the joint inversion method is less dependence on the high and steep structure information in the initial model and improve high inversion efficiency and accuracy for the model with steep dip angle structure.

Time-Domain Full Waveform Inversion Using the Gradient Preconditioning Based on Transmitted Wave Energy

The gradient preconditioning approach based on seismic wave energy can effectively avoid the huge memory consumption of the gradient preconditioning algorithms based on the Hessian matrix. However, the accuracy of this approach is prone to be influ- enced by the energy of reflected waves. To tackle this problem, the paper proposes a new gradient preconditioning method based on the energy of transmitted waves. The approach scales the gradient through a precondition factor, which is calculated by the ‘ap- proximate transmission wavefield’ simulation based on the nonreflecting acoustic wave equation. The method requires no computing nor storing of the Hessian matrix and its inverse matrix. Furthermore, the proposed method can effectively eliminate the effects of geometric spreading and disproportionality in the gradient illumination. The results of model experiments show that the time-domain full waveform inversion (FWI) using the gradient preconditioning based on transmitted wave energy can achieve higher inversion accuracy for deep high-velocity bodies and their underlying strata in comparison with the one using the gradient preconditioning based on seismic wave energy. The field marine seismic data test shows that our proposed method is also highly applicable to the FWI of field marine seismic data.

Three-dimensional frequency-domain full waveform inversion based on the nearly-analytic discrete method

The nearly analytic discrete(NAD)method is a kind of finite difference method with advantages of high accuracy and stability.Previous studies have investigated the NAD method for simulating wave propagation in the time-domain.This study applies the NAD method to solving three-dimensional(3D)acoustic wave equations in the frequency-domain.This forward modeling approach is then used as the“engine”for implementing 3D frequency-domain full waveform inversion(FWI).In the numerical modeling experiments,synthetic examples are first given to show the superiority of the NAD method in forward modeling compared with traditional finite difference methods.Synthetic 3D frequency-domain FWI experiments are then carried out to examine the effectiveness of the proposed methods.The inversion results show that the NAD method is more suitable than traditional methods,in terms of computational cost and stability,for 3D frequency-domain FWI,and represents an effective approach for inversion of subsurface model structures.

Quantitative ultrasound brain imaging with multiscale deconvolutional waveform inversion

High-resolution images of human brain are critical for monitoring the neurological conditions in a portable and safe manner.Sound speed mapping of brain tissues provides unique information for such a purpose.In addition,it is particularly important for building digital human acoustic models,which form a reference for future ultrasound research.Conventional ultrasound modalities can hardly image the human brain at high spatial resolution inside the skull due to the strong impedance contrast between hard tissue and soft tissue.We carry out numerical experiments to demonstrate that the time-domain waveform inversion technique,originating from the geophysics community,is promising to deliver quantitative images of human brains within the skull at a sub-millimeter level by using ultra-sound signals.The successful implementation of such an approach to brain imaging requires the following items:signals of sub-megahertz frequencies transmitting across the inside of skull,an accurate numerical wave equation solver simulating the wave propagation,and well-designed inversion schemes to reconstruct the physical parameters of targeted model based on the optimization theory.Here we propose an innovative modality of multiscale deconvolutional waveform inversion that improves ultrasound imaging resolution,by evaluating the similarity between synthetic data and observed data through using limited length Wiener filter.We implement the proposed approach to iteratively update the parametric models of the human brain.The quantitative imaging method paves the way for building the accurate acoustic brain model to diagnose associated diseases,in a potentially more portable,more dynamic and safer way than magnetic resonance imaging and x-ray computed tomography.

Acoustic Based Crosshole Full Waveform Slowness Inversion in the Time Domain

We develop a new full waveform inversion (FWI) method for slowness with the crosshole data based on the acoustic wave equation in the time domain. The method combines the total variation (TV) regularization with the constrained optimization together which can inverse the slowness effectively. One advantage of slowness inversion is that there is no further approximation in the gradient derivation. Moreover, a new algorithm named the skip method for solving the constrained optimization problem is proposed. The TV regularization has good ability to inverse slowness at its discontinuities while the constrained optimization can keep the inversion converging in the right direction. Numerical computations both for noise free data and noisy data show the robustness and effectiveness of our method and good inversion results are yielded.

ultiscale full-waveform inversion based on shot subsampling

Conventional full-waveform inversion is computationally intensive because it considers all shots in each iteration. To tackle this, we establish the number of shots needed and propose multiscale inversion in the frequency domain while using only the shots that are positively correlated with frequency. When using low-frequency data, the method considers only a small number of shots and raw data. More shots are used with increasing frequency. The random-in-group subsampling method is used to rotate the shots between iterations and avoid the loss of shot information. By reducing the number of shots in the inversion, we decrease the computational cost. There is no crosstalk between shots, no noise addition, and no observational limits. Numerical modeling suggests that the proposed method reduces the computing time, is more robust to noise, and produces better velocity models when using data with noise.

Sparse constrained encoding multi-source full waveform inversion method based on K-SVD dictionary learning

Full waveform inversion(FWI)is an extremely important velocity-model-building method.However,it involves a large amount of calculation,which hindsers its practical application.The multi-source technology can reduce the number of forward modeling shots during the inversion process,thereby improving the efficiency.However,it introduces crossnoise problems.In this paper,we propose a sparse constrained encoding multi-source FWI method based on K-SVD dictionary learning.The phase encoding technology is introduced to reduce crosstalk noise,whereas the K-SVD dictionary learning method is used to obtain the basis of the transformation according to the characteristics of the inversion results.The multiscale inversion method is adopted to further enhance the stability of FWI.Finally,the synthetic subsag model and the Marmousi model are set to test the effectiveness of the newly proposed method.Analysis of the results suggest the following:(1)The new method can effectively reduce the computational complexity of FWI while ensuring inversion accuracy and stability;(2)The proposed method can be combined with the time-domain multi-scale FWI strategy flexibly to further avoid the local minimum and to improve the stability of inversion,which is of significant importance for the inversion of the complex model.

Time Domain Full Waveform Inversion Based on Gradient Preconditioning with an Angle-Dependent Weighting Factor

There are lots of low wavenumber noises in the gradients of time domain full waveform inversion(FWI),which can seriously reduce the accuracy and convergence speed of FWI.Thus,we introduce an angle-dependent weighting factor to precondition the gradients so as to suppress the low wavenumber noises when the multi-scale FWI is implemented in the high frequency.Model experiments show that the FWI based on the gradient preconditioning with an angle-dependent weighting factor has faster convergence speed and higher inversion accuracy than the conventional FWI.The tests on real marine seismic data show that this method can adapt to the FWI of field data,and provide high-precision velocity models for the actual data processing.

Q full-waveform inversion based on the viscoacoustic equation

Presently, most full-waveform inversion methods are developed for elastic media and ignore the effect of attenuation. The calculation of the quality factor Q is based on velocity parameter inversion under the assumption of a given Q-model that is obtained by tomographic inversion. However, the resolution of the latter is low and cannot reflect the amplitude attenuation and phase distortion during wave propagation in viscoelastic media. Thus, a Q waveform inversion method is proposed. First, we use standard linear body theory to describe attenuation and then we derive the simplified viscoacoustic equation that characterizes amplitude attenuation and phase distortion. In comparison with conventional equations, the simplifi ed equation involves no memory variables and therefore requires less memory during computation. Moreover, the implementations of the attenuation compensation are easier. The adjoint equation and the corresponding gradient equation with respect to either L2-norm or the zero-lag cross-correlation objective function are then derived and the regularization strategy for overcoming the instability during numerical solution of the adjoint equation is proposed. The Q waveform inversion is developed using the limited-memory Broyden–Fletcher– Goldfarb–Shanno (L-BFGS) iteration method for known velocity. To alleviate the dependence of the waveform inversion on the initial model and overcome cycle skipping to some extent, we adopt multiscale analysis. Furthermore, anti-noise property and double-parameter inversion are assessed based on the results of numerical modeling.

Full-waveform Velocity Inversion Based on the Acoustic Wave Equation

Full-waveform velocity inversion based on the acoustic wave equation in the time domain is investigated in this paper. The inversion is the iterative minimization of the misfit between observed data and synthetic data obtained by a numerical solution of the wave equation. Two inversion algorithms in combination with the CG method and the BFGS method are described respectively. Numerical computations for two models including the benchmark Marmousi model with complex structure are implemented. The inversion results show that the BFGS-based algorithm behaves better in inversion than the CG-based algorithm does. Moreover, the good inversion result for Marmousi model with the BFGS-based algorithm suggests the quasi-Newton methods can provide an important tool for large-scale velocity inversion. More computations demonstrate the correctness and effectives of our inversion algorithms and code.

Full waveform inversion based on initial model built from envelope inversion

Full waveform inversion is a fitting process based on full seismic wave field simulation data using the full waveform information in seismic records and theoretically it is the ultimate goal of seismic inversion. However,there are many problems to be solved in practical application. Firstly,it is the strong nonlinear problem between the seismic wave field and inversion parameters; secondly,the lack of low-frequency information in seismic records. In this study,the envelope is used as objective function inversion to provide the inversion result for the multi-scale full waveform inversion as the initial model,solving the lack of low-frequency information in seismic records. Taking the envelope of seismic records as the objective function in combination of multi-scale full waveform inversion became a new inversion strategy,which naturally achieved the compensation of shortage of low-frequency information and inversion from low frequency to high frequency,reducing the non-linearity in the inversion process. The comparison of the result of full waveform inversion of the initial model built through envelope inversion with the result of the conventional multi-scale full waveform inversion indicates the effectiveness of envelope inversion for the recovery of low-frequency information in seismic records.

Studies on quasi-Newton methods in timedomain multiscale full waveform inversion

The time-domain multiscale full waveform inversion(FWI)mitigates the influence of the local minima problem in nonlinear inversion via sequential inversion using different frequency components of seismic data.The quasi-Newton methods avoid direct computation of the inverse Hessian matrix,which reduces the amount of computation and storage requirement.A combination of the two methods can improve inversion accuracy and efficiency.However,the quasi-Newton methods in time-domain multiscale FWI still cannot completely solve the problem where the inversion is trapped in local minima.We first analyze the reasons why the quasi-Newton Davidon–Fletcher–Powell and Broyden–Fletcher–Goldfarb–Shanno methods likely fall into the local minima using numerical experiments.During seismic-wave propagation,the amplitude decreases with the geometric diffusion,resulting in the concentration of the gradient of the velocity model in the shallow part,and the deep velocity cannot be corrected.Thus,the inversion falls into the local minima.To solve this problem,we introduce a virtual-source precondition to remove the influence of geometric diffusion.Thus,the model velocities in the deep and shallow parts can be simultaneously completely corrected,and the inversion can more stably converge to the global minimum.After the virtual-source precondition is implemented,the problem in which the quasi-Newton methods likely fall into the local minima is solved.However,problems remain,such as incorrect search direction after a certain number of iterations and failure of the objective function to further decrease.Therefore,we further modify the process of timedomain multiscale FWI based on virtual-source preconditioned quasi-Newton methods by resetting the inverse of the approximate Hessian matrix.Thus,the validity of the search direction of the quasi-Newton methods is guaranteed.Numerical tests show that the modified quasi-Newton methods can obtain more reasonable inversion results,and they converge faster and entail lesser computational resources than the gradient method.

Wavelet packet envelope multi-scale full waveform inversion

Full waveform inversion( FWI) is an effective tool for constructing high resolution velocity models,but it is affected by a local minima problem. Without long offsets and low frequency data,it is difficult to apply the conventional multi-scale FWI to actual seismic data. In this study,the large offset and low frequency information are provided by the method of wavelet packet envelope for the conventional FWI. The gradient can be computed efficiently with the adjoint state method without any additional computational cost. Marmousi synthetic data is used to illustrate that,compared with Hilbert envelope-based FWI,wavelet packet envelope FWI can provide an adequately accurate model for the conventional FWI approach even when the initial model is far from the true model and the low-frequency data are missing.

Simultaneous Waveform Inverse Modelling for Litho-Fluid Prediction in an Old Marginal, “Agbbo”Field, Onshore Niger Delta, Nigeria

Simultaneous waveform inversion was used to predict lithofacies and fluid type across the field. Very often, characterizing reservoirs in terms of lithology and fluid type using conventional methods is replete with uncertainties, especially in marginal fields. An approach is employed in this study that integrated rock physics and waveform inverse modelling for lithology and fluid-type characterization to appropriately identify potential hydrocarbon saturated zones and their corresponding lithology. Seismic and well-log data were analyzed using Hampson Russel software. The method adopted includes lithofacies and fluid content analysis using rock physics parameters and seismic simultaneous inverse modelling. Rock physics analysis identified 2 broad reservoirs namely: HDZ1 and HDZ2 reservoirs. Results from the inverse modelling showed that low values of acoustic impedance from 19,743 to 20,487 (ft/s)(g/cc) reflect hydrocarbon-bearing reservoirs while medium to high values shows brine and shale respectively, with brine zone ranging from 20,487 to 22,531 (ft/s)(g/cc) and shale above 22,531 (ft/s)(g/cc). Two lithofacies were identified from inversion analysis of Vp/Vs and Mu-Rho, namely: sand and shale with VpVs 1.95 values respectively. Mu-Rho > 12.29 (GPa)(g/cc) and <12.29 (GPa) (g/cc) represent sand and shale respectively. From 3D volume, it was observed that a high accumulation of hydrocarbon was observed to be saturated at the north to the eastern part of the field forming a meandering channel. Sands were mainly distributed around the northeastern to the southwestern part of the field, that tends to be away from Well 029. This was also validated by the volume of rigidity modulus (Mu-Rho) showing high values indicating sands fall within the northeastern part of the field.