FWT2D: A massively parallel program for frequency-domain full-waveform tomography of wide-aperture seismic data—Part 2

• Published in: Computers & geosciences 2009-03, Vol.35 (3), p.496-514
• Main Authors: Sourbier, Florent, Operto, Stéphane, Virieux, Jean, Amestoy, Patrick, L’Excellent, Jean-Yves
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Full-waveform inversion; Parallel computation; Seismic imaging
• ISSN: 0098-3004; 1873-7803
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cageo.2008.04.012

This is the second paper in a two-part series that describes a massively parallel code that performs 2D full-waveform inversion of wide-aperture seismic data for imaging complex structures. We present several numerical validation of the full-waveform inversion code with both canonical and realistic synthetic examples. We illustrate how different multiscale strategies can be applied by either successive mono-frequency inversions or simultaneous multifrequency inversions and their impact on the convergence and the robustness of the inversion. We present a scalability analysis using a real marine data set recorded by a dense array of ocean bottom seismometers to image the crustal structure of a subduction zone. We obtained a speedup of 20 when using 50 processes on a PC cluster which allowed us to iteratively invert 13 frequencies of the full data set in less than 2 days. This computational performance will allow in the future more extensive analysis of full-waveform tomography methods when applied to representative case studies or when considering 3D geometries.