Building Robust Earth Models in One Step

An elegant process can recover high-resolution subsurface models of reflectivity, velocity and relative density from marine shot gathers with minimal pre-processing applied. Referred to as PGS Ultima, the seismic algorithm recovers deep models for conventional streamer lengths. The description here avoids mathematics and highlights the key breakthroughs that have enabled conventional FWI (Full Waveform Inversion) and data domain Least-Squares Reverse Time Migration (LS-RTM) to evolve into a methodology that can simultaneously recover several models of subsurface properties without significant leakage between parameters, make no assumptions about rock physics relationships, and bypass traditionally cascaded processing and imaging flows.