RADON DEPTH MIGRATION

A depth migration method is presented that uses Radon-transformed common-source seismograms as input. It is shown that the Radon depth migration method can be extended to spatially varying velocity depth models by using asymptotic ray theory (ART) to construct wavefield continuation operators. These operators downward continue an incident receiver-array plane wave and an assumed point-source wavefield into the subsurface. The migration velocity model is constrained to have longer characteristic wavelengths than the dominant source wavelength such that the ART approximations for the continuation operators are valid. This method is used successfully to migrate two synthetic data examples: 1. a point diffractor, and 2. a dipping layer and syncline interface model. It is shown that the Radon migration method has a computational advantage over the standard Kirchhoff migration method in that fewer rays are computed in a main memory implementation.