Depth migration before stack

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Abstract
When seismic data are migrated using operators derived from the scalar wave equation, an assumption is normally made that the seismic velocity in the propagating medium is locally laterally invariant. This simplifying assumption causes reflectors to be imaged incorrectly when lateral velocity gradients exist, irrespective of the degree of accuracy to which the subsurface velocity structure is known. A finite‐difference method has been implemented for migration of unstacked data in the presence of lateral velocity gradients, where the operation of wave field extrapolation is done in increments of depth rather than time. Performing this depth migration on unstacked data results in the imaging of reflectors on the zero‐offset trace, whereupon a zero‐offset section becomes a fully imaged‐in‐depth seismic section. Such a section, in addition to being a correctly migrated depth section, shows the same order of signal amplitude enhancement as in a normal stacking process.

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