A new imaging condition based on Poynting vectors in RTM seismic imaging method

The low frequency noises are the characteristic of reverse time migration (RTM) method. In this study, a high pass filter, Laplacian filter and an imaging condition based on the down-going components of the wave-field are used to suppress the low frequency noises. Then, a new imaging condition as the heart of RTM is presented to suppress these low frequency noises. In the above imaging condition, the wave-fields are separated to their down-going and up-going components by the information of the poynting vectors. The poynting vectors information are also used to calculate the reflection angles as a basis for the proposed weighted function. The results of implementation for the improved RTM method on a synthetic dataset (Marmousi) indicates the efficiency of the proposed method to suppress the low frequency noises in producing high quality, high illuminated depth migrated image. The improved method has the capability to identify all the subsurface geological structures properly.