ITR: An Adaptive Wavefront Construction Algorithm for Optimal Seismic Ray Tracing

Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, College Station TX

Investigators

Abstract

Ray tracing methods are an important tool in computational geophysics, and are used regularly both for simulating seismic wave propagation and for generating images of subsurface geologic structures in inversion and imaging methods. For example, these are some of the basic tools in oil exploration. However, even recent high-efficiency ray tracing implementations have some potentially important limitations. On the other hand, wavefront construction algorithms are another class of solutions that do compute all of the relevant physical information. This project will develop these methods. They will find use in a wide range of activities ranging from fundamental studies of the nature of the Earth's deep interior to analysis and characterization of oil reservoirs in the petroleum industry. Technically, this project will develop new wavefront construction methods for seismic ray tracing in 3-D, anisotropic models of the Earth. This allows more general and realistic Earth models than are currently possible. At the same time, this is an important problem in advanced computational science, because the 3-D mesh constructed in the course of the simulation will have geometries and features not usually considered in other common mesh construction algorithms. Another important aspect of the research will be the development of self-tuning components in the software to allow the algorithm to automatically adapt itself for maximum computational speed on hardware configurations ranging from small desktop workstations to massively parallel supercomputers.