• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.111-123
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• 2007

Unlike the conventional reverse time migration method which is implemented by simply extrapolating wavefield in reverse time, this paper presents a derivation of another reverse time migration operator as the exact adjoint of the presumed forward wavefield extrapolation operator. The adjoint operator is obtained by formulating the forward time extrapolation operator in an explicit matrix equation form and then taking the adjoint to this matrix equation followed by determining the corresponding operator. The reverse time migration operator as the exact adjoint to the implied forward operator can be used not only as a migration algorithm but also as an adjoint operator which is required in the imaging through an inversion such as least-squares migration.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.191-202
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• 2011

Reserve-time migration (RTM) using a two-way wave equation is one of the most accurate migration techniques. RTM has been conducted by assuming that subsurface media are isotropic. However, anisotropic media are commonly encountered in reality. Conventional isotropic RTM may yield inaccurate results for anisotropic media. In this paper, we develop RTM algorithms for vertical transversely isotropic media (VTI) and tilted transversely isotropic media (TTI). For this, the pseudo-acoustic wave equations are used. The modeling algorithms are based on the high-order finite-difference method (FDM). The RTM algorithms are composed using the cross-correlation imaging condition or the imaging condition using virtual sources. By applying the developed RTM algorithms to the Hess VTI and BP TTI models, we could obtain better images than those obtained by the conventional isotropic RTM.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.3 no.2
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• pp.70-75
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• 2000

In the seismic migration, Kirchhoff and reverse time migration are used in general. In the reverse time migration using wave equation, two-way and one-way wave equation are applied. The approach of one-way wave equation uses approximately computed downward continuation extrapolator, it need tess amounts of calculations and core memory in compared to that of two-way wave equation. In this paper, we applied one-way wave equation to pre-stack reverse time migration. In the frequency-space domain, forward propagation of source wavefield and back propagration of measured wavefield were executed by using monochromatic one-way wave equation, and zero-lag cross correlation of two wavefield resulted in the image of subsurface. We had implemented prestack migration on a massively parallel processors (MPP) CRAYT3E, and knew the algorithm studied here is efficiently applied to the prestck migration due to its suitability for parallelization.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.102-107
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• 2006

Recently, rapid developments in computer hardware have enabled reverse-time migration to be applied to various production imaging problems. As a wave-equation technique using the two-way wave equation, reverse-time migration can handle not only multi-path arrivals but also steep dips and overturned reflections. However, reverse-time migration causes unwanted artefacts, which arise from the two-way characteristics of the hyperbolic wave equation. Zero-lag cross correlation with diving waves, head waves and back-scattered waves result in spurious artefacts. These strong artefacts have the common feature that the correlating forward and backward wavefields propagate in almost the opposite direction to each other at each correlation point. This is because the ray paths of the forward and backward wavefields are almost identical. In this paper, we present several tactics to avoid artefacts in shot-domain reverse-time migration. Simple muting of a shot gather before migration, or wavefront migration which performs correlation only within a time window following first arriving travel times, are useful in suppressing artefacts. Calculating the wave propagation direction from the Poynting vector gives rise to a new imaging condition, which can eliminate strong artefacts and can produce common image gathers in the reflection angle domain.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.153-159
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• 2003

Using reciprocity theorem, one direction aperture of seismogram can be extended to full aperture seismogram. Modified seismogram is applied to reverse time migration only to acquire improved migration image. In this paper, we tested reverse time migration with the Marmousi velocity data to examine efficiency of modified seismogram. And linearly increasing velocity model is selected and examined for a case where velocity data is insufficient. When true velocity is applied, using modified seismogram enhances the reverse time migration image more than using original seismogram. In the case of using linearly increasing velocity model, migration image is distorted. So low frequency source is brought in migration process. Reverse time migration image with low frequency source and linearly increasing velocity model is improved when modified seismogram is used. From the result of study, seismogram modification by reciprocity theorem is useful and migration image can be enhanced.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.43 no.4
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• pp.349-358
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• 2010

For imaging complex subsurface structures such as salt dome, faults, thrust belt, and folds, seismic prestack reverse-time migration in depth domain is widely used, which is performed by the cross-correlation of shot-domain wavefield extrapolation with receiver-domain wavefield extrapolation. We apply the prestack reverse-time migration, which had been developed at KIGAM, to the seismic field data set of Block 5 in Jeju basin of Korea continental shelf in order to improve subsurface syncline stratigraphy image of the deep structures under the shot point 8km at the surface. We performed basic data processing for improving S/N ratio in the shot gathers, and constructed a velocity model from stack velocity which was calculated by the iterative velocity spectrum. The syncline structure of the stack image appears as disconnected interfaces due to the diffractions, but the result of the prestack migration shows that the syncline image is improved as seismic energy is concentrated on the geological interfaces.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.109-119
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• 2022

The computational efficiency of reverse time migration (RTM) based on numerical modeling is not secured due to the high-frequency band of several hundred Hz or higher for data acquired through a three-dimensional (3D) ultra-high-resolution (UHR) seismic survey. Therefore, this study develops an RTM program to derive high-quality 3D geological structures using UHR seismic data. In the traditional 3D RTM program, an excitation amplitude technique that stores only the maximum amplitude of the source wavefield and a domain-limiting technique that minimizes the modeling area where the source and receivers are located were used to significantly reduce memory usage and calculation time. The program developed through this study successfully derived a 3D migration image with a horizontal grid size of 1 m for the 3D UHR seismic survey data obtained from the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources in 2019, and geological analysis was conducted.

• 한국지구물리탐사학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.05a
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• pp.237-241
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• 2005

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.78-88
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• 2021

Owing to the abnormal weather conditions due to global warming, carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology has attracted global attention as a countermeasure to reduce CO₂ emissions. In the Pohang CCS demonstration project in South Korea, 100 tons of CO₂ were successfully injected into the subsurface CO₂ storage in early 2017. However, after the 2017 Pohang earthquake, the Pohang CCS demonstration project was suspended due to an increase in social concerns about the safety of the CCS project. In this study, to reconfirm the structural suitability of the CO₂ storage site in the Pohang Basin, we employed seismic imaging based on reverse-time migration (RTM) to analyze small-scale ocean-bottom seismic data, which have not been utilized in previous studies. Compared with seismic images using marine streamer data, the continuity of subsurface layers in the RTM image using the ocean-bottom seismic data is improved. Based on the obtained subsurface image, we discuss the structural suitability of the Pohang CO₂ storage site.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.8-17
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• 2023

Various sources, such as wind, waves, ships, and gas leaks from the seafloor, forms bubbles in the ocean. Underwater bubbles cause signal scattering, considerably affecting acoustic measurements. This characteristic of bubbles is used to block underwater noise by attenuating the intensity of the propagated signal. Recently, researchers have been studying the large-scale release of methane gas as bubble plumes from the seabed. Understanding the physical properties and distribution of bubble plumes is crucial for studying the relation between leaked methane gas and climate change. Therefore, a water tank experiment was conducted to estimate the distribution of bubble plumes using seismic imaging techniques and acoustic signals obtained from artificially generated bubbles using a bubble generator. Reverse time migration was applied to image the bubble plumes while the acquired acoustic envelope signal was used to effectively estimate bubble distribution. Imaging results were compared with optical camera images to verify the estimated bubble distribution. The water tank experiment confirmed that the proposed system could successfully image the distribution of bubble plumes using reverse time migration and the envelope signal. The experiment showed that the scattering signal of artificial bubble plumes can be used for seismic imaging.