Microlocal analysis of borehole seismic data

Abstract

Borehole seismic data is obtained by receivers located in a well, with sources located on the surface or another well. Using microlocal analysis, we study possible approximate reconstruction, via linearized, filtered backprojection, of an isotropic sound speed in the subsurface for three types of data sets. The sources may form a dense array on the surface, or be located along a line on the surface (walkaway geometry) or in another borehole (crosswell). We show that for the dense array, reconstruction is feasible, with no artifacts in the absence of caustics in the background ray geometry, and mild artifacts in the presence of fold caustics in a sense that we define. In contrast, the walkaway and crosswell data sets both give rise to strong, nonremovable artifacts.