Implicit Seismic Full Waveform Inversion With Deep Neural Representation

Full waveform inversion (FWI) is arguably the current state-of-the-art amongst methodologies for imaging subsurface structures and physical parameters with seismic data; however, important challenges are faced in its implementation and use. Keys amongst these are (a) building a suitable initial model, from which a local minimum is unlikely to be reached, and (b) availability of tools for evaluation of uncertainty. An algorithm we refer to as implicit full waveform inversion (IFWI), designed using continuously and implicitly defined deep neural representations, appears in principle to address both of these issues. We observe in IFWI, with its random initialization and deep learning optimization, improved convergence relative to standard FWI model initialization and optimization. Models close to the global minimum, capturing relatively high-resolution subsurface structures, are obtained. In addition, uncertainty analysis, though not solved in IFWI, is meaningfully addressed by approximating Bayesian inference with the addition of dropout neurons. Numerical experimentation with a range of 2D geological models is suggestive that IFWI exhibits a strong capacity for generalization, and is likely well-suited for multi-scale joint geophysical inversion.