Patent Document ID: 20120316792
Application ID: 13364025
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. A computer-implemented method for creating an image of sub-surface formations in a defined 2D or 3D volume of a geological structure comprising: partitioning a velocity model domain representing geophysical wavefield propagation characteristics of a sub-surface structure of the earth in said defined volume into a plurality of blocks, each block having an associated processing task for processing wave data; receiving, at an array of receiver devices at a surface of or within said defined volume, data representing measurements of each wave produced by a shot of a sequence of plural shots; and assigning each partitioned domain block to one or more processing nodes of a distributed processing highly parallel computer device having a plurality of processing nodes interconnected through one or more communication networks; computing in parallel, using said associated processing tasks at each said processing node, data representing contributions of forward wave propagation data and reverse wave propagation at that node using said shot data; storing some or all of said forward wave snapshot data in a local memory storage device at each respective said node; and, using said computed forward wave propagation data and reverse wave propagation data contributions stored at each node to form an imaging condition from which an image of sub-surface formations is created.