SOFI2D and SOFI3D

Project Description

In order to extract information about the 3-D structure and composition of the crust from seismic observations, it is necessary to be able to predict how seismic wavefields are affected by complex structures. Since exact analytical solutions to the wave equations do not exist for most subsurface configurations, the solutions can be obtained only by numerical methods.

Seismic modelling is helpful for predicting and understanding the kinematic and dynamic properties of seismic waves propagating through models of the crust. With the increased amount of detailed information required from seismic data, seismic modelling has become an essential tool for the evaluation of seismic measurements. It helps in every stage of a seismic investigation. It can help determine optimal recording parameters in data acquisition. Synthetic datasets can be computed to test processing procedures. The comparison of synthetic and field seismograms leads to a better understanding of seismic measurements and thus, finer details can be extracted from seismic field recordings. In seismic inversion procedures, modeling is the kernel of the inversion process.

The KIT seismic working group concentrates on the optimization of 2-D and 3-D time domain finite-difference numerical methods, since these methods are applicable to arbitrary complex media. Domain-decomposition allows to use modern cluster technology. By using the free and portable message passing interface (MPI) the simulations are distributed on our in-house Linux PC cluster. The codes also show good performance on massive parallel supercomputers.

SOFI is a viscoelastic forward modeling code. It solves the pure elastic or viscoelastic wave equation by a finite difference scheme in the time domain. It uses the stress velocity formulation on a 2-D or 3-D Cartesian standard staggered grid. Viscoelasticity is implemented by a generalized standard linear solid.