Imaging the near surface with frequency domain waveform inversion

Hussain I. Hammad, Gary F. Margrave

Waveform inversion has been demonstrated to be an effective tool in recovering seismic velocities. We test the capability of frequency domain waveform inversion (FDWI) in resolving locally strong lateral velocity variations of the near surface for surface seismic geometries. To study the effect of those variations on FDWI, we use two models, one with those variations and one without. The modeling and the inversion of the models were carried out using the same approach. The final inversion results of both models are well resolved. The result of this work confirms the effectiveness of waveform inversion in handling the strong velocity variations of the near surface.