The Gaussian Beam (GB) concept was introduced in the seismic literature by Russian and Czech researchers in the begining of the 80’s. This theory, which by its turn was based on the scalar electromagnetic diffraction theory, is in fact a (zero order) complex paraxial ray theory, designed to satisfactorilly describe the seismic wavefield propagation beyond the standard zero order ray theory, up to then the only theory used to describe the high frequency seismic wavefield propagation in smoothed velocity models. As an imaging tool, the first works to deal with GB’s were published in the end of the 80’s and in the begining of the 90’s. The regularity in the description of the wavefield by GB’ s, as well as its high accuracy in some singular regions of the velocity model, transformed the use of GB’s into a viable hybrid alternative in the migration theory. In this work, we unite the flexibility in imaging of the true amplitude prestack Kirchhoff depth migration with the regularity in the description of the wavefield by a superposition of GB’s. As a way of controlling in a very stable way some quantities used in the construction of the beams, we have made use of some informations based on the Fresnel volume elements, more especifically speaking the Fresnel zone radius around the reflection point in depth and its counterpart, projected towards the acquisition surface. This information is centred around the recording point of the seismogram and is also present in the seismic data reflection traveltime curves. Our migration process can be named a true amplitude prestack Kirchhoff depth migration using GB’s as Green function, namely KGB-PSDM.
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