A brief history of seismic migration

Abstract

In this article, I attempt to focus on the chronology of seismic imaging. I start in the mid-1920s, progress through the human "computer"-based methods of the 1940s and 1950s, discuss the emergence of digital wave-equation technology in the 1960s and early 1970s, and finally end with a review of the present. I include a bit of speculation about the future of seismic imaging, but the meat of the article is on seismic-imaging history. Based on the timing of their publications, I claim there are three key contributors to the theoretical developments of modern seismic imaging: F. Rieber, J. G. Hagedoorn, and J. F. Claerbout. None of these men were the first to consider the seismic-imaging problem, but their papers and algorithms have probably been quoted more often than anyone else's. One certainly must give credit as well to C. H. Dix and M. M. Slotnick for similar contributions. Other names that come to mind include Hans Sattlegger in Germany, A. J. Berkhout in the Netherlands, Bill Schneider at GSI in Dallas, and Robert Stolt at CONOCO in Ponca City, Oklahoma. However, without the independent computational progression predicted by Moore's law (computer speed doubles every 18 months), the spectacular subsurface images produced today would not be possible. I hope to convince the reader that in addition to the development of the vast literature on seismic-imaging theory, another, less-publicized, parallel technological progression has focused on the development of efficient machines to produce, with minimal human intervention, an increasingly more accurate image of the strata below the recording instruments. Unfortunately, with a few key exceptions, the names of many of the contributors to this aspect of seismic imaging have been lost. The digital revolution in the 1960s appears to be the culmination of this attempt at mechanization, but not until the development of truly powerful scientific computers did the more accurate and advanced theoretical developments in seismic-imaging theory become practical to apply and use in the search for diminishing supplies of hydrocarbons. In fact, one can argue that we still don't have sufficient computer power to do everything we need and want to do. But that's another story.

Alternative Computing Platforms to Implement the Seismic Migration

“…Computing systems based on FPGAs have both on-board memory 5 as on-chip memory 6 , these two types of memory are faster than the external memories. Some research has made implementations in order to reduce the delays caused in the reading and writing operations [22], in their researches, have been designing special memory architectures that allow to optimize the use of different types of memory with FPGAs.…”

“…[6] and, in 1970 and 1971, Jon Claerbout published two papers focused on the use of second order, hyperbolic, partial-differential equations to perform the imaging. Largely, the Claerbout work was centered in the use of finite differences taking advantage of the numeric analysis created during the World War II.…”

“…Even though this newfangled method appeared to work, in many places it produced extremely poor seismic records. These were the so-called no-record areas [6].…”

“…Karchner made other important advance in this field because they received a patent for determining the contour of subsurface strata that was inspired by their work on detection of the blast waves of artillery during World War I, [6]. Butitwasonlyin 1924 when a group led by the German scientist Ludger Mintrop, could locate the first Orchard salt dome in Fort Bend County, Texas [15].…”

Synthetic aperture focusing of ultrasonic data from multilayered media using an omega-K algorithm

“…Computerbased processing of seismic data started in the 1970s [1], and the initial methods were limited to time-space domain processing. In 1978, Stolt [2] introduced what is now called the frequency-wavenumber, or ω −k, algorithm, performing all processing in the temporal and spatial frequency domain.…”