1. On the Effect of 3D Wave Propagation on 2D Regional‐Scale Velocity Model Building.
- Author
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Górszczyk, Andrzej, Brossier, Romain, and Métivier, Ludovic
- Subjects
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THEORY of wave motion , *SEISMIC anisotropy , *SEISMOGRAMS , *IMAGING systems in seismology , *GEOPHONE , *VELOCITY , *SEISMIC surveys , *SUBDUCTION zones - Abstract
Active seismic surveys are routinely employed by academia to study geological structure of the crust and upper mantle. Wavefields generated during these surveys are sampled at the receiver locations, but the wave‐paths traveled from a source to a sensor remains unknown. Although seismic acquisition layouts designed to investigate complex crustal‐scale environments are often two‐dimensional, the seismogram recorded at the receiver location represents information gathered along the three‐dimensional wavepaths that might offset from the 2D source/receiver profile along its transverse direction. This so‐called 3D‐effect distorts the results of 2D seismic imaging, which is unable to handle the out‐of‐plane propagation. Despite the numerous 2D seismic imaging case studies, the assessment of this issue is often overlooked. However, the problem exists ‐ especially for crustal‐scale profiles, where seismic energy propagates over distances of hundreds of kilometers and probes different crustal units. In this work we investigate the impact of 3D‐effect on the results of 2D velocity model building from the academic ocean‐bottom seismometer data. We show with polarization analysis how the 3D‐effect can manifest itself in the data domain. Using various scenarios of acquisition we evaluate the imprint of the out‐of‐plane propagation on the data and the results of full‐waveform inversion. We show that 2D velocity model building from the seismic profiles acquired in the complex geological setting can lead to wrong solution. Looking for the remedy to this issue we couple different configurations of acquisition geometries with 3D full‐waveform inversion that allow to handle the 3D effect and provide correct model reconstruction. Plain Language Summary: Subsurface structures can often form complex geological settings. Assumption that 2D seismic surveys and 2D imaging of resulting data is sufficient to reconstruct such complex environment might often be wrong and can lead to false geological interpretation. In this study we demonstrate how the 2D seismic data acquired in a subduction zone environment can be affected with various intensity by the out‐of‐plane wavefield propagation and how this can bias the velocity model reconstruction. We demonstrate how this issue can manifest itself in the data domain and how it can be solved by changing the approach to the crustal‐scale seismic acquisition from 2D to 3D. We show that 3D velocity model building at wavelet resolution from academic seismic data is possible nowadays with available computing power and efficient source codes. Through this work we want to promote this kind of seismic data acquisition and processing for better and less uncertain reconstructions of the key crustal‐scale geological settings that shape our planet. Key Points: 2D seismic data acquired in complex geological settings are affected by the 3D‐effect, which leads to the errors during 2D seismic imagingProcessing of the data from the 2D profiles within the 3D models can provide partial remedy to the 3D effect at the processing stageRobust 3D full‐waveform inversion of academic crustal‐scale data is possible once supported by optimization of the acquisition design [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
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