Patent ID: 11914101
Assignee: EXXONMOBIL TECHNOLOGY AND ENGINEERING COMPANY
Field: Computer technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G | IPC G

Claim 0:
1. A method of hydrocarbon prospecting, comprising:
computing, using a subsurface property model, an objective function measuring misfit between model-simulated data and measured geophysical data;
computing a search direction comprising a gradient in order to update the model;
partitioning the search direction, wherein partitioning the search direction comprises:
introducing a 3D partition of unity in image space; and
partitioning the gradient corresponding to the 3D partition of unity;

performing multiple line searches for the partitioned search direction in order to generate respective line search constants;
updating the model using the partitioned search direction and the respective line search constants; and
identifying potential hydrocarbon-bearing formations in a subsurface region with data from the updated model.