PRESTACK FULL-WAVE INVERSION OF SEISMIC DATA WITH STRONG MULTIPLE REFLECTIONS

Free-surface and internal multiple reflections contain independent inf ormation on the geometry and material properties of the reflectors tha t produced them. Thus, if they are present in the data that are input to prestack full wavefield inversion, they provide constraints to the solution. An advantage that full wave inversion has over migration is that multiples do not have to be removed, or even identified, prior to processing. Application of a spatial filter, to allow contributions f rom data corresponding to progressively increasing wavenumbers as iter ations proceed, guides the inversion solution to the neighborhood of t he global minimum. The inversion is applied successfully to synthetic common-source data from models with both flat and geometrically compli cated water-bottoms, and subbottom stratigraphy.