Velocity-independent time-domain seismic imaging using local event slopes

Conclusions

Local slopes of seismic events contain complete information about the reflection geometry. Once they are estimated, one can turn seismic velocities and all other moveout parameters into data attributes directly mappable from the prestack data domain into the time-migrated image domain. In this paper, I have developed the analytical theory for this transformation and demonstrated its applicability with examples.

Extensions of oriented imaging from time to depth migration are provided in parsimonious migration (Hua and McMechan, 2003) using a ray tracing formalism and in the theory of the oriented wave equation (Fomel, 2003a) using a wave equation formalism.