Generalized diffraction-stack migration and filtering of coherent noise

We reformulate the equation of reverse-time migration so that it can be interpreted as summing data along a series of hyperbola-like curves, each one representing a different type of event such as a reflection or multiple. This is a generalization of the familiar diffraction-stack migration algorithm where the migration image at a point is computed by the sum of trace amplitudes along an appropriate hyperbola-like curve. Instead of summing along the curve associated with the primary reflection, the sum is over all scattering events and so this method is named generalized diffraction-stack migration. This formulation leads to filters that can be applied to the generalized diffraction-stack migration operator to mitigate coherent migration artefacts due to, e.g., crosstalk and aliasing. Results with both synthetic and field data show that generalized diffraction-stack migration images have fewer artefacts than those computed by the standard reverse-time migration algorithm. The main drawback is that generalized diffraction-stack migration is much more memory intensive and I/O limited than the standard reverse-time migration method. © 2014 European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers.