3D multi-arrival Kirchhoff versus wave equation migration : application to the 3D SEG/EAGE Salt model.

Summary In the context of the SEG/EAGE Salt model experiment we compare results obtained by 3D multi-arrival preserved amplitude ray based migration with those obtained by 3D wave equation migration. The same dataset is used but both preprocessing and velocity model differ (for Kirchhoff migration some smoothing had to be applied to the exact velocity model). By the end the better quality of images obtained using wave equation migration with the exact velocity model suffers no contestation. In addition to the differences in the wave propagation methods used in the both migration strategies and the differences in the preprocessing, the use of a too smooth velocity model for Kirchhoff migration may also be put forward. It is however clear that this smoothness is required for the efficiency of the wave front construction code used in the study. Improving this aspect of 3D Kirchhoff migration in an efficient way is certainly a challenge. On the other side ray based migration keep the advantage of computing efficiency, and wave equation migration has to be settled in terms of amplitude preserving.