Improving accuracy and efficiency in elastic finite difference modelling

Multicomponent technology has known to have a better imaging quality as compared to P-wave imaging. However, the cost of acquiring and processing the multicomponent data is more costly than P-wave imaging. Although P-wave imaging may have poorer imaging capability as compared to shear wave imaging, a good P-wave imaging can still be obtained if a good seismic modelling technique is used. Thus, this paper aims to enhance seismic modelling technique, in terms of accuracy, suppression of grid dispersion, and reduction in computation time. The finite difference (FD) technique is used as the modelling scheme, and the elastic modelling approach is used in this paper. The new method is applied on homogeneous model and synthetic data, and then compared to conventional FD modelling (4th order), higher order FD modelling (14th order), optimization of staggered grid coefficients such as least squares method and Wang & Liang's method. The comparison will then be shown and discussed. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd.