relation: http://miis.maths.ox.ac.uk/miis/344/ title: Full Wave Form Inversion for Seismic Data creator: Farmer, C. creator: Hoteit, I. creator: Luo, X. creator: Boonyasiriwat, C. creator: Alkhalifah, T. subject: Energy and utilities subject: Information and communication technology description: In seismic wave inversion, seismic waves are sent into the ground and then observed at many receiving points with the aim of producing high-resolution images of the geological underground details. The challenge presented by Saudi Aramco is to solve the inverse problem for multiple point sources on the full elastic wave equation, taking into account all frequencies for the best resolution. The state-of-the-art methods use optimisation to find the seismic properties of the rocks, such that when used as the coefficients of the equations of a model, the measurements are reproduced as closely as possible. This process requires regularisation if one is to avoid instability. The approach can produce a realistic image but does not account for uncertainty arising, in general, from the existence of many different patterns of properties that also reproduce the measurements. In the Study Group a formulation of the problem was developed, based upon the principles of Bayesian statistics. First the state-of-the-art optimisation method was shown to be a special case of the Bayesian formulation. This result immediately provides insight into the most appropriate regularisation methods. Then a practical implementation of a sequential sampling algorithm, using forms of the Ensemble Kalman Filter, was devised and explored. date: 2011 type: Study Group Report type: NonPeerReviewed format: application/pdf language: en identifier: http://miis.maths.ox.ac.uk/miis/344/1/Aramco.pdf identifier: Farmer, C. and Hoteit, I. and Luo, X. and Boonyasiriwat, C. and Alkhalifah, T. (2011) Full Wave Form Inversion for Seismic Data. [Study Group Report]