Efficient depth extrapolation of waves in elastic isotropic media

Abstract: We propose a computationally efficient technique for extrapolating seismic waves in an arbitrary isotropic elastic medium. The method is based on factorizing the full elastic wave equation into a product of pseudo-differential operators. The method extrapolates displacement fields, hence can be used for modeling both pressure and shear waves. The proposed method can achieve a significant reduction in the cost of elastic modeling compared to the currently prevalent time- and frequency-domain numeric modeling methods and can contribute to making multicomponent elastic modeling part of the standard seismic processing work flow.