SEGJ Technical Conference

Comparison of different implementations of the free surface for foothill topography through SEM and FDM methods.

Abstract It is important to correctly synthesize seismograms in the study of seismic exploration techniques, especially of Full waveform inversion (FWI), because the FWI is based on an optimization method to match the synthetic seismograms to the actually observed seismograms. For instance, implementation of the free surface through the adequate rheology is crucial for the seismic exploration at the foothill topography. In this study, we compare two methods of seismic simulation by using the same foothill model: Finite difference method (FDM) and Spectral element method (SEM). As a result, we find that we obtain more realistic seismograms by means of SEM due to the implementation of free surface more consistent with the physics in the SEM than in the FDM.