• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
• /
• v.19 no.3
• /
• pp.136-144
• /
• 2016

Since seismic inversion is based on the wave equation, it is important to calculate the solution of wave equation exactly. In particular, full waveform inversion would produce reliable results only when the forward modeling is accurately performed because it uses full waveform. When we use finite-difference or finite-element method to solve the wave equation, the convergence of numerical scheme should be guaranteed. Although the general proof of convergence is provided theoretically, the consistency and stability of numerical schemes should be verified for practical applications. The implementation of source function is the most crucial factor for the consistency of modeling schemes. While we have to use the sinc function normalized by grid spacing to correctly describe the Dirac delta function in the finite-difference method, we can simply use the value of basis function, regardless of grid spacing, to implement the Dirac delta function in the finite-element method. If we use frequency-domain wave equation, we need to use a conservative criterion to determine both sampling interval and maximum frequency for the source wavelet generation. In addition, the source wavelet should be attenuated before applying it for modeling in order to make it obey damped wave equation in case of using complex angular frequency. With these conditions satisfied, we can develop reliable inversion algorithms.