Theory of 3-D angle gathers in wave-equation seismic imaging

Discussion

Since the first presentation of the 3-D angle-gather theory (Fomel, 2004), many new research results have appeared in the literature. By the end of 2000s, prestack 3-D reverse-time migration has become a standard tool for depth imaging in structurally-complex areas, and it is becoming feasible to generate 3-D angle gathers as part of routine processing (Xu et al., 2010; Luo et al., 2010; Vyas et al., 2010). The most important new theoretical developments are the ability to extract angle information from time-shift angle gathers (Vyas et al., 2010; Sava and Fomel, 2006), the ability to extract not only reflection-angle but also azimuth information (Xu et al., 2010), and the extension of the angle-gather theory to anisotropy (Alkhalifah and Fomel, 2009; Biondi, 2007).