Improvement of Structural Imaging and Reservoir Delineation in the Carpathian Foothills using Full Waveform Inversion

Summary The south of the Romanian Carpathian Mountains is characterized by an important thrust inclusion which is inserted inside the younger sediments of the Getic basin. This intrusion is the result of regional compressional constraints applied to the Getic foreland basin, occurring from the Eocene-Burdigalian until the Mid-Sarmatian. The so-called Burdigalian wedge shifted into the Getic basin along the Burdigalian salt detachment on top of the Moesian platform. The frontal part of the Burdigalian wedge is then an imbricate slice of the Upper Burdigalian strata. In the past three years, several wide-azimuth seismic surveys have been recorded in the area to increase the knowledge of the subsurface. In this paper, we show how the latest seismic data acquisition and processing techniques significantly improved the imaging of the complex geological structures, enabling better delineation of prospects. We particularly show the benefits of Full Waveform Inversion (FWI) on two recent seismic imaging projects.