Adaptive Beam Migration

Adaptive Beam Migration (ABM) is the WesternGeco implementation of a prestack depth migration based on Gaussian technology. It provides a high-end, full-beam migration for situations demanding outstanding image quality and interpretation confidence.

ABM is a flexible, targetable migration algorithm that combines many of the features associated with ray-based and wave-equation migrations. It is fully anisotropic, handling both vertical transverse isotropy (VTI) and tilted transverse isotropy (TTI).

The migration is targetable and is inherently multiarrival, using amplitude and phase information obtained from dynamic ray-tracing from the surface of overlapping sets of full-width beams. Unlike wavefield extrapolation migrations, ABM has no inherent dip limit, and is suitable for imaging steep dip and overturned structures. ABM also produces offset or offset vector tiles (OVT) gathers suitable for further analysis.

ABM and Gaussian Packet Migration (GPM) from WesternGeco form a complete beam portfolio. ABM provides a full final-imaging method while GPM provides fast/detailed model building and scenario testing capabilities.

Related references

• Albertin, U., Stork, C., Yingst, D., Chang, W., Fletcher, R. and Kitchenside, P., "Amplitude Behavior of Kirchhoff, Wavefield Extrapolation, and Beam Migration in Areas of Poor Illumination",66th EAGE Conference, 2004.
• Albertin, U., Yingst, D., Kitchenside, P. and Tcheverda, V., "True-amplitude beam migration",Submitted to the 74th Annual Internat. Mtg., Soc. Expl. Geophys., Expanded Abstracts Soc. Expl. Geophys.
• Uwe Albertin, David Yingst and Herman Jaramillo, 2001, 2001, Comparing Common-offset Maslov, Gaussian-Beam, and coherent state migrations, SEG 2001 Expanded Abstracts. 
• N. Ross Hill, 2001, Prestack Gaussian-Beam Migration, Geophysics, vol 66, No.4, p1240-1250.