Decoupled elastic least-squares reverse time migration and its application in tunnel geological forward-prospecting

Accurate seismic imaging can ensure safe and efficient tunnel construction under complex geological conditions. As a high-precision migration method, reverse time migration (RTM) has been introduced into tunnel seismic forward-prospecting. However, the resolution of traditional RTM imaging results may not meet the requirements in a complex tunnel environment, which affects the interpretation of tunnel seismic forward-prospecting results. In this study, we propose a least-squares RTM method based on the decoupled elastic wave equation in tunnels. The Born forward modeling operator and its exact adjoint migration imaging operator are derived to ensure a stable convergence of the conjugate gradient method. Moreover, a pseudo-Hessian based preconditioning operator is adopted to accelerate the convergence. Numerical examples are provided to verify the efficiency of the proposed scheme. A field test in a traffic tunnel construction site is performed to show the good application effect of the decoupled elastic least-squares RTM in practical situations.