Model-based depth imaging / Модельные глубинные изображения

Depth imaging is changing the face of seismic technology. First and foremost, depth imaging greatly extends our ability to image geologic structure. This is true not only for highly complex structures such as thrust imbricates and subsalt structures, but also for subtle structural plays like fault shadows. In fact, since the late 1980’s, almost all structural play exploration has been stalled at the frontier where time imaging is no longer effective. In the 1990’s depth imaging has taken us through this frontier and is renewing many of these structural plays.
But depth imaging is also transforming seismic technology in a second way; by integrating the traditionally separate tasks of seismic processing and seismic interpretation far more extensively than ever before. Indeed, imaging and interpretation are now unified into a single procedure. Model-building, which is so critical to the success of depth imaging is, in effect, an exercise in defining structure. I use the term “model-based depth imaging” to call attention to this new way of working. <...>