Full Waveform Inversion Application to the Deep-Sea Terrace of Forearc Basin in Japan Trench

Summary The subsurface geology around Japan Trench subduction zone has a complex nature due to the tectonic activity. The forearc sedimentary basin has been severely faulted and deformed, therefore, seismic imaging demands accurate velocity models for prestack depth migration. We applied full waveform inversion (FWI) to iteratively update a smooth initial model and obtain a high resolution velocity model. The resulting velocity model was used to perform reverse time migration (RTM) on the seismic data. The RTM images were significantly improved by using the FWI velocity model compared to the ones resulted from initial model and could clearly explain the subsurface structure.