Integrated approach to subsalt depth imaging: Synthetic case study

The problem of depth imaging in a complex situation is addressed, considering both velocity/depth model building and depth migration. Using the Sigsbee 2A synthetic data set, it is demonstrated that in complex structural situations, constructing the correct depth image using poststack/prestack depth migration, even with knowledge of the correct velocity depth model and the true zero-offset section, is not obvious. It is shown that wavefield datuming facilitates the use of traveltime velocity inversion and of zero-offset section approximations in cases in which their application before datuming has been inefficient or unsuccessful.