First-arrival Raypath & Traveltime Modeling of a 2D Walkaway VSP Survey under Attenuating VTI Media

Summary We demonstrated the first arrival real ray tracing method under the most geologically representative and meaningful medium assumption, the viscoelastic transversely isotropic (VTI). Powered by the newly developed analytical solution of complex ray velocity and slowness calculation called g*-Hamiltonian method, we successfully capture and deiliniate all the propagation and attenuation raypaths and traveltime, especially dealing with the most challenging qSV wave, as their presence of cusps, on the 2D walkaway VSP settings. All of the first arrival events could be captured to the ray coverage and source to receiver distance, giving meaningful insight about attenuation and propagation in real space, especially detecting the timing of the first refraction events as the source goes further away from the well