Date of Award
Fall 12-2015
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Program
Engineering and Applied Science
Department
Physics
Major Professor
Juliette Ioup; Mostofa Sarwar
Second Advisor
Stan Chin-Bing
Third Advisor
George Ioup
Fourth Advisor
Dimitrios Charalampidis
Fifth Advisor
Ashkok Puri
Sixth Advisor
Kevin Stokes
Seventh Advisor
Ross Hill
Abstract
Before raw seismic data records are interpretable by geologists, geophysicists must process these data using a technique called migration. Migration spatially repositions the acoustic energy in a seismic record to its correct location in the subsurface. Traditional migration techniques used a transpose approximation to a true acoustic propagation operator. Conventional least squares migration uses a true inverse operator, but is limited in functionality by the large size of modern seismic datasets. This research uses a new technique, called stabilized least squares migration, to correctly migrate seismic data records using a true inverse operator. Contrary to conventional least squares migration, this new technique allows for errors over ten percent in the underlying subsurface velocity model, which is a large limitation in conventional least squares migration. The stabilized least squares migration also decreases the number of iterations required by conventional least squares migration algorithms by an average of about three iterations on the sample data tested in this research.
Recommended Citation
Ganssle, Graham, "Stabilized Least Squares Migration" (2015). University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations. 2074.
https://scholarworks.uno.edu/td/2074
Rights
The University of New Orleans and its agents retain the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible this dissertation or thesis in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The author retains all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis or dissertation.