Full Waveform Inversion is one of the most advanced processing methods that is recently reaching a mature state after years of solving theoretical and technical issues such as the non-uniqueness of the solution and harnessing the huge computational power required by realistic scenarios. In this work, we present the application of this method to a 3D on-land dataset acquired to characterize the shallow subsurface. The current study explores the possibility to apply elastic isotropic Full Waveform Inversion using only the vertical component of the recorded seismograms. One of the main challenges in this case study remains the costly 3D modeling that includes topography and free surface effects. Nevertheless, the resulting models provide a higher resolution of the subsurface structures than starting models, and show a good correlation with the available borehole measurements.

The authors thank Repsol for the permission to publish the present research and for funding through the Aurora project. J. Kormann also thankfully acknowledges the Spanish Supercomputing Network (RES) through grant FI-2014-2-0009. Funding support for the data acquisition and access to the available geophysical data was provided by ENRESA. The GFZ Instrument Pool provided the instrumentation for the data acquisition. This project was partially funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 644602.

Peer Reviewed