Fresnel volume migration of single-component seismic data

Standard implementations of Kirchhoff prestack depth migration (PSDM) distribute the recorded wavefield along two-way-traveltime isochrons and an image is generated by constructive interference of these isochrons along the actual reflector elements. Beside the recent developments of wave-equation-based approaches, Kirchhoff PSDM is still considered widely as a state-of-the-art technique in obtaining high-quality images of the subsurface, particularly for highly irregular survey layouts and target-oriented imaging tasks. However, for sparse sampling or limited aperture, the resulting image is affected by significant migration noise as a result of limited constructive interference of the back-propagated wavefield. Some modifications have been proposed to reduce these artifacts. These modifications include constructing a specular path of wave propagation, derived from estimates of the emergent angle of coherent phases in the seismogram section, and the mainly heuristic restriction of the imaging operator to the neighborhood of that wavepath. Our approach uses Fresnel volumes to restrict the migration operator in a physically frequency-dependent way. Using the emergent angle at the receiver, determined by a local slowness analysis, a ray is propagated into the subsurface; the back-propagation of the wavefield is restricted to the vicinity of this ray according to its approximated Fresnel volume. This so-called Fresnel volume migration approach enhances image quality significantly compared with standard Kirchhoff PSDM because of the inherent focusing and the restriction of the back-propagation to the region around the actual reflection point.