The time and space formulation of azimuth moveout

Published as SEP report, 84, 25-37 (1995)

The time and space formulation
of azimuth moveout

Sergey Fomel and Biondo L. Biondi

sergey@sep.stanford.edu, biondo@sep.stanford.edu

Abstract:

Azimuth moveout (AMO) transforms 3-D prestack seismic data from one common azimuth and offset to different azimuths and offsets. AMO in the time-space domain is represented by a three-dimensional integral operator. The operator components are the summation path, the weighting function, and the aperture. To determine the summation path and the weighting function, we derive the AMO operator by cascading dip moveout (DMO) and inverse DMO for different azimuths in the time-space domain. To evaluate the aperture, we apply a geometric approach, defining AMO as the result of cascading prestack migration (inversion) and modeling. The aperture limitations provide a consistent description of AMO for small azimuth rotations (including zero) and justify the economic efficiency of the method.