Numerical modeling of elastic-wave scattering by near-surface heterogeneities

In land seismic data, scattering from surface and near-surface heterogeneities adds complexity to the recorded signal and masks weak primary reflections. To understand the effects of near-surface heterogeneities on seismic reflections, we simulated seismic-wave scattering from arbitrary-shaped, shallow, subsurface heterogeneities through the use of a perturbation method for elastic waves and finite-difference forward modeling. The near-surface scattered wavefield was modeled by looking at the difference between the calculated incident (i.e., in the absence of scatterers) and the total wavefields. Wave propagation was simulated for several earth models with different near-surface characteristics to isolate and quantify the influence of scattering on the quality of the seismic signal. The results indicated that the direct surface waves and the upgoing reflections were scattered by the near-surface heterogeneities. The scattering took place from body waves to surface waves and from surface waves to body waves. The scattered waves consisted mostly of body waves scattered to surface waves and were, generally, as large as, or larger than, the reflections. They often obscured weak primary reflections and could severely degrade the image quality. The results indicated that the scattered energy depended strongly on the properties of the shallow scatterers and increased with increasing impedance contrast, increasing size of the scatterers relative to the incident wavelength, decreasing depth of the scatterers, and increasing attenuation factor of the background medium. Also, sources deployed at depth generated weak surface waves, whereas deep receivers recorded weak surface and scattered body-to-surface waves. The analysis and quantified results helped in the understanding of the scattering mechanisms and, therefore, could lead to developing new acquisition and processing techniques to reduce the scattered surface wave and enhance the quality of the seismic image.Saudi AramcoMassachusetts Institute of Technology. Earth Resources Laborator