AVA Inversion of PP Reflection in a VTI Medium using Proximal Splitting
Algorithm
Abstract
Amplitude variation with offset (AVO) inversion, particularly for more
than two model parameters, is a highly ill-posed problem and, hence,
regularization is indispensable. Here, we propose a regularized inverse
problem to mitigate the ill-posedness of the amplitude inversion. The
regularization is added to measure the difference in information between
the a priori probability density function and the predicted probability
density of the inverted parameters. Information theory provides a
collection of contrast functions which quantify the divergence from one
probability distribution to another, such as the relative entropy. The a
priori density is approximated by a Gaussian mixture model, obtained
from well logs and rock physics model. The mixture model is a density
estimator, providing the statistical properties of the model parameters
of interest. The likelihood of the data and the divergence are combined
in an augmented Lagrangian scheme, the alternating direction method of
multipliers (ADMM), to obtain a unique solution that best generate the
recorded seismic data and satisfy the geological constraints conveyed by
the a priori probability density function. The proposed inversion scheme
is then applied to the anisotropy AVO inversion, for estimating the
elastic and seismic anisotropy parameters of shale formations. Compared
to the unconstrained minimization, the P- and S-wave velocity, and
$\varepsilon$ are better recovered, moreover, density
and Thomsen’s $\delta$ are well-constrained.