Direct and indirect inversion and a new and comprehensive perspective on the role of primaries and multiples in seismic data processing for structure determination and amplitude analysis

Abstract

The removal and use of multiples have a single shared goal and objective: the imaging and inversion of primaries. There are two kinds of primaries: recorded primaries and unrecorded primaries. For imaging recorded primaries using an industry standard practice smooth velocity model, recorded multiples must be removed, to avoid false and misleading images due to the multiples. Similarly, to find an approximate image of an unrecorded primary, that is a subevent of a recorded multiple, unrecorded multiples that are subevents of the recorded multiple must be removed, for exactly the same problem and reason that recorded multiples are needed to be eliminated. Direct inverse methods are employed to derive this new comprehensive perspective on primaries and multiples. Direct inverse methods not only assure that the problem of interest is solved, but equally important, that the problem of interest is the relevant problem that we (the petroleum industry) need to be interested in.