Velocity model building using shape optimization applied to level sets

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract
As oil and gas extraction becomes more advanced, exploration becomes increasingly focused on imaging near or under complex salt geology, which necessitates detailed velocity models with sharp interfaces. Current state-of-the-art practices include the use of Full-Waveform Inversion (FWI). However, this type of approach can result in salt body models that lack the sharp interfaces characteristic of this type of geobody. This is typically due to the computational expense of using increasingly high frequencies in the data. These interfaces can be elegantly tracked as sharp boundaries using the level sets of an implicit surface. Used in conjunction with shape optimization, one can invert for salt boundaries that fit recorded data in a FWI style objective function that is parameterized in terms of both the implicit surface and a background velocity model. While this addition of the implicit surface requires more model parameters, radial basis functions can be used to create a sparse parameterization of it, which can hasten convergence of the inversion. The implicit surface also allows for embedding information about the certainty of different salt boundary regions by means of its initialization. This information allows for intelligent guidance of the inversion based on interpreter input, which can help the inversion avoid local minima. The result of testing this inversion workflow on a 3D Gulf of Mexico dataset shows that it can be a useful tool for refining salt models, as the seismic images produced from the final model shows clearer and more consistent features below the updated salt area.

Description

Type of resource text
Form electronic resource; remote; computer; online resource
Extent 1 online resource.
Place California
Place [Stanford, California]
Publisher [Stanford University]
Copyright date 2019; ©2019
Publication date 2019; 2019
Issuance monographic
Language English

Creators/Contributors

Author Dahlke, Taylor Jerome
Degree supervisor Biondi, Biondo, 1959-
Thesis advisor Biondi, Biondo, 1959-
Thesis advisor Beroza, Gregory C. (Gregory Christian)
Thesis advisor Clapp, Robert G. (Robert Graham)
Degree committee member Beroza, Gregory C. (Gregory Christian)
Degree committee member Clapp, Robert G. (Robert Graham)
Associated with Stanford University, Department of Geophysics.

Subjects

Genre Theses
Genre Text

Bibliographic information

Statement of responsibility Taylor Dahlke.
Note Submitted to the Department of Geophysics.
Thesis Thesis Ph.D. Stanford University 2019.
Location electronic resource

Access conditions

Copyright
© 2019 by Taylor Jerome Dahlke
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).

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