Seismic Imaging

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15 papers4 papers in the last four weeks, against 1 the four weeks before. 0.0% of all new papers.

Oct 13, 2026

Structure-aware Bayesian full waveform inversion via diffusion-regularized Stein variational gradient descent

Full waveform inversion (FWI) is a powerful tool for high-resolution subsurface model reconstruction, but it remains highly nonlinear and ill-posed, especially when the initial model is inaccurate or the acquired data are noisy and incomplete. Annealed Stein variational gradient descent (ASVGD) provides a particle-based Bayesian framework for FWI by approximating the posterior distribution with an ensemble of velocity models, thereby enabling uncertainty quantification beyond a single deterministic solution. However, conventional ASVGD-FWI commonly relies on simple handcrafted priors, such as Gaussian or smoothing assumptions, which are often insufficient to represent complex geological structures. To address this limitation, we introduce a learned diffusion model (DM) as an implicit regularization mechanism within the ASVGD-FWI framework. Instead of explicitly evaluating the diffusion prior density, the trained diffusion model acts as a learned geological projection operator that guides updated particles toward the distribution of plausible velocity models. In this way, the proposed method combines data consistency from FWI, posterior diversity from ASVGD, and structural realism from the diffusion prior. Numerical experiments demonstrate that the diffusion-regularized ASVGD-FWI produces more geologically consistent mean models, suppresses nonphysical artifacts, and yields uncertainty estimates that are more concentrated around structurally complex and poorly constrained regions. These results suggest that learned diffusion priors can effectively enhance Bayesian FWI by improving both inversion stability and the interpretability of posterior uncertainty.

Chao Li, Mrinal K. Sen, Sergey Fomel +1

The University of Texas at Austin

Seismic Imaging Bayesian Inverse Problems Inverse Problems Image Inverse Problems Stein Variational Gradient Descent Diffusion-Based Inverse Problems

Oct 11, 2026

Full Waveform Inversion with a Learned Preconditioner

Full-waveform inversion (FWI) is a powerful approach for reconstructing subsurface velocity models, but its practical performance is limited by ill-conditioning, sensitivity to the update direction, and the high cost of curvature-based methods. In this project, we investigate whether a neural operator trained on reverse-time-migration (RTM) images can provide a useful learned preconditioner for FWI. We compare projected FWI against neural-preconditioned FWI using either a standard Fourier neural operator (FNO) or a Jacobian-informed FNO (JI-FNO). The neural preconditioner applies the normal operator of the learned RTM map to modify the true Devito FWI gradient. Our experiments show that the JI-FNO preconditioner achieves the lowest model error while maintaining data-residual decay comparable to baseline projected FWI. In contrast, the standard FNO preconditioner is unstable and gives worse model recovery, despite using the same neural-preconditioning framework. We also identify a failure mode of a nonlinear neural Gauss Newton-type inner solve: directly matching the neural RTM output to the FWI gradient creates an objective-space mismatch and does not yield a reliable descent direction. These results suggest that forward RTM-image prediction alone is insufficient for learned preconditioning; accurate learned derivatives and objective-consistent use of the neural operator are critical for producing useful inversion updates.

Jeongjin Park

Seismic Imaging Inverse Problems Learning to Optimize Image Inverse Problems Fourier Neural Operator

Oct 10, 2026

Depth-progressive 3D seismic velocity model building via 2D generative diffusion models

Three-dimensional (3D) velocity model building (VMB) remains computationally challenging with conventional approaches and native 3D neural networks, largely due to the prohibitive memory and training cost of full 3D formulations. Therefore, we introduce a depth-progressive framework that achieves 3D VMB using 2D generative diffusion models through a depth-as-channel formulation, in which the depth dimension of each 3D velocity patch is mapped to the channel dimension of a 2D U-Net. This allows the model to synthesize overlapping depth patches sequentially from shallow to deep while conditioning the prediction of the deeper patch on the shallower one, as well as on any available geophysical constraints, including well logs and structural attributes. During training, paired shallow-deep patch pairs with randomized overlaps are used to teach the network how deeper velocity structures relate to shallower information, and a classifier-free guidance strategy enables the model to handle missing constraints gracefully. At inference, starting from a shallow velocity prior, the model recursively generates deeper patches in a top-down manner, and a depth-attenuated Gaussian blending scheme merges overlapping predictions into spatially coherent 3D volumes while accounting for the progressive accumulation of uncertainty at greater depths. Numerical experiments on both in-distribution benchmark models, including Overthrust, SEAM Arid, and SEG/EAGE, and the out-of-distribution Marmousi model demonstrate that the method effectively propagates shallow velocity priors downward and produces high-quality 3D velocity volumes across a range of geological settings and conditioning scenarios. Compared to a 3D benchmark of equivalent architecture, the proposed method significantly reduces parameter count, training cost, and inference cost, while maintaining superior VMB accuracy.

Shijun Cheng, Randy Harsuko, Mohammad H. Taufik +1

Division of Physical Science and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal 23955-6900, Saudi Arabia

Seismic Imaging Diffusion Models Conditional Generative Modeling

Oct 7, 2026

Self-attention summary networks for subsurface velocity-model building from common-image gathers

Common-image gathers (CIGs) contain physically meaningful information about velocity-model errors through reflector focusing and residual moveout, but in conventional imaging workflows they are typically used only as diagnostic tools. In this work, we propose a multiscale self-attention summary network that maps high-dimensional 3D CIG volumes into compact conditioning embeddings for probabilistic subsurface velocity inversion. These learned embeddings preserve offset-dependent kinematic structure and spatial coherence while reducing variability caused by background-velocity mismatch. Conditioned on these summary embeddings, a flow-matching model learns a transport from a Gaussian source distribution to the posterior distribution of plausible velocity fields. Numerical experiments show that, compared with direct conditioning on raw CIGs, the proposed summary network improves posterior velocity inference. In particular, the multiscale attention design provides greater robustness to background-model mismatch, yielding more accurate posterior reconstructions and lower predictive uncertainty.

Shiqin Zeng, Yunlin Zeng, Abhinav Prakash Gahlot +2

Georgia Institute of Technology

Seismic Imaging Inverse Problems Bayesian Inverse Problems Image Inverse Problems Multi-Scale Attention

Sep 11, 2026

Physical-State-Guided Diffusion Sampling for Full-Waveform Inversion

Full waveform inversion (FWI) estimates subsurface velocity from seismic recordings, but its ill-posedness and nonlinearity make accurate reconstruction strongly dependent on initialization and prior information. Diffusion posterior sampling provides a learned geological prior, yet directly coupling its denoiser to the nonlinear wave solver can yield unreliable physical guidance. We propose Physical-State-Guided Diffusion Sampling (PSG), which couples a persistent physical velocity to the diffusion prior through a Gaussian bridge. The physical state is refined by waveform fitting regularized by the denoised velocity, and in turn guides the reverse diffusion process. This formulation separates the wave-equation and denoiser gradients while preserving conventional FWI initialization and accumulated optimization history. On four OpenFWI families, PSG's terminal denoised estimates outperform classical and diffusion-based baselines under clean and missing-trace acquisitions and maintain strong structural recovery under measurement noise. Repeated stochastic runs preserve the dominant geological structures, with ensemble variability concentrated near geological interfaces and positively associated with local inversion error. A frozen OpenFWI-trained prior further supports inversion of the larger Marmousi, Overthrust, and BP2004 Salt models, recovering complex geological structures without retraining.

Chen Min, Haowen Jiang, Zheng Ma +1

School of Mathematical Sciences, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China · CMA-Shanghai, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China · School of Mathematics and Statistics, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, China

Physics-Informed Diffusion Models Seismic Imaging Diffusion-Based Inverse Problems Diffusion Posterior Sampling PDE Inverse Problems Inverse Problems+1

Jul 23, 2026

Latent Variable-Mediated Cross-Learning for Few-Shot Acoustic Impedance Imaging

Acoustic impedance imaging is a fundamental yet severely ill-posed problem in subsurface analysis: the seismic wavelet is unknown, observations are band-limited, and labeled well-log samples are extremely scarce (typically <1% of all traces). Existing semi-supervised deep learning methods mitigate few-shot problem by incorporating forward modeling, yet they either rely on inaccurate prior wavelet assumptions or introduce auxiliary networks, leading to unstable optimization and degraded performance. We propose RD-SCL, a novel framework that integrates regularized deconvolution with semi-supervised cross-learning. At its core lies a differentiable, closed-form first-order Tikhonov deconvolution operator that dynamically estimates the latent wavelet in the frequency domain during training, providing stable physics-guided feedback without explicit auxiliary networks and fixed wavelet priors. Building on this operator, we design a symmetric cross-learning that enforces consistency between predictions on labeled and unlabeled data, thereby effectively exploiting abundant unlabeled traces. Extensive experiments on the SEAM and Marmousi 2 benchmarks demonstrate that RD-SCL consistently outperforms state-of-the-art supervised and semi-supervised methods, achieving substantial gains with lower computational cost. With only 56.5k learnable parameters and competitive runtime, RD-SCL offers a practical, physically consistent, and efficient solution for acoustic impedance imaging.

Junheng Peng, Yong Li, Mingwei Wang +1

The Key Laboratory of Earth Exploration & Information Techniques of Ministry Education, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu, 610059, China · School of Resources and Safety Engineering, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400044, China · Institute of Space Earth Science, Nanjing University, Suzhou, 215163, China

Physics-Informed ML Semi-Supervised Learning Inverse Problems Seismic Imaging

Jun 22, 2026

Tensor Train Decomposition-based 3D Implicit Full Waveform Inversion with Multi-scale Structural Similarity

Three-dimensional full waveform inversion (3DFWI) is a powerful technique for reconstructing high-resolution subsurface velocity models. However, its application is often limited by high memory requirements, computational costs, and sensitivity to cycle skipping. To overcome these challenges, we propose a novel tensor train (TT) decomposition-based 3D implicit full waveform inversion framework (TT-3DIFWI) combined with a multi-scale structural similarity (M-SSIM) objective function. In this framework, the 3D velocity model is represented by TT decomposition as a product of a series of low-rank core tensors. Then, three axis-specific implicit neural network representations (INR) based on one-dimensional vector coordinates as input are constructed to predict these core tensors, rather than directly predicting the velocity model. This INR reparameterization method based on TT decomposition can significantly reduce the memory consumption of INR training while maintaining the accuracy and resolution of the 3D velocity model reconstruction. Meanwhile, the low-rank structure of TT decomposition also ensures the structural consistency of the reconstruction velocity, thereby improving the accuracy and continuity of the inversion result. Furthermore, the M-SSIM objective function can compare the multi-scale structural differences between predicted and observed data, and utilize the ultra-low frequency features to reduce cycle skipping. Numerical experiments on synthetic and challenging land datasets demonstrate that TT-3DIFWI with M-SSIM achieves accurate and continuous velocity reconstruction, even with poor initial models or missing low-frequency data.

Liangsheng He, Chao Song, Tiansheng Chen +2

State Key Laboratory of Deep Earth Exploration and Imaging College of GeoExploration Science and Technology, Jilin University Changchun, Jilin, 130021, China · State Key Laboratory of DeepChaoEarthSong Exploration and Imaging College of GeoExploration Science and Technology, Jilin University Changchun, Jilin, 130021, China · Petroleum Exploration and Production Research Institute, Sinopec Beijing, 100083, China

Implicit Neural Representations 3D Reconstruction TT Decomposition Seismic Imaging Inverse Problems Image Inverse Problems

Jun 19, 2026

Bayesian three-dimensional seismic travel-time tomography for active- and passive-source seismic data using physics-informed neural network

Accurate 3D seismic velocity modeling through seismic travel-time tomography using both active- and passive-source data provides critical underpinning models for seismicity monitoring and hazard assessment. Because travel-time tomography is an inherently ill-posed inverse problem, UQ of the estimated models using Bayesian methods is also important for reliable downstream interpretations and analyses. However, Bayesian inference for 3D tomography based on conventional grid-based representations faces the ``curse of dimensionality'' and severe computational bottlenecks. Consequently, rigorous Bayesian UQ for margin-wide 3D travel-time tomography has remained largely unexplored. In this study, we propose a meshless 3D Bayesian travel-time tomography method that combines PINNs with a neural representation of the velocity structure, enabling tractable and data-efficient Bayesian inference through function-space particle-based variational inference. To efficiently integrate passive-source data into the Bayesian estimation of the velocity structure, we conduct analytical marginalization treating uncertain source parameters as nuisance parameters, with passive-source relocation carried out in post-processing. We validated the capability of our approach for 3D problems through synthetic experiments. Furthermore, we applied the method to a real-world dataset from marine active-source surveys and natural earthquakes off the Kii Peninsula, Nankai Trough. Our probabilistic 3D ensemble successfully resolves key geological features and provides data-consistent uncertainty maps. The posterior mean hypocenters shifted mainly in the vertical direction by 10-15 km, consistent with a previous relocation result. Finally, the neural representation drastically reduces storage requirements for the entire ensemble velocity model, highlighting the scalability and data efficiency of the proposed framework.

Ryoichiro Agata, Kazuya Shiraishi, Gou Fujie +1

Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology · Earth Science New Zealand

Uncertainty Quantification Bayesian Inverse Problems Seismology Inverse Problems Seismic Imaging

May 28, 2026

SubsurfaceGen: Procedural Generation of Field-Scale Earth Models and Seismic Data

Full waveform inversion (FWI) is the gold standard for subsurface imaging, with applications from carbon sequestration to energy and mineral exploration to earthquake hazard assessment. Machine learning approaches to FWI need field-scale, geologically diverse, and physically realistic training data, but existing resources such as Marmousi, SEAM, and OpenFWI fall short on spatial extent, temporal extent, geological diversity, and physical realism. We address these limitations with SubsurfaceGen, a GPU-accelerated generator for 3D velocity models and seismic data. Along with SubsurfaceGen, we release a paired dataset of 4,276 2D velocity slices, 5 s wavefields, and 8 s shot gathers drawn from 42 realistic, field-scale 3D velocity models, each spanning 10 km x 10 km laterally and 6.19 km deep at 10 m resolution. The dataset spans six geological settings -- four built with SubsurfaceGen and two drawn from prior sources -- relevant for carbon sequestration and hydrocarbon exploration. We use this dataset to evaluate neural operators on wavefield prediction and encoder-decoders on end-to-end velocity inversion, holding out one geological setting for out-of-distribution testing. These experiments surface failure modes at field-scale and demonstrate how SubsurfaceGen and the associated dataset can impact ML-based FWI.

Joseph Stitt, Pratik Rathore, Madeleine Udell +1

Stanford University

Synthetic Data Generation PDE Surrogate Modeling Synthetic Benchmark Generation Seismic Imaging Seismology Inverse Problems+1

May 14, 2026

Quantum Feature Pyramid Gating for Seismic Image Segmentation

Accurate salt-body delineation is essential for seismic interpretation because salt structures distort wave propagation, complicate velocity-model building, obscure reservoir geometry, and increase uncertainty in exploration and drilling decisions. Although hybrid quantum-classical models have shown competitive performance on small-scale image-classification tasks, their value for dense, pixel-level geophysical prediction remains largely untested. This work introduces quantum feature gating, a hybrid segmentation architecture that embeds a parameterized quantum circuit (PQC) at feature-fusion points within an encoder-decoder pipeline. A 4-qubit, 2-layer PQC with data re-uploading computes a learned convex combination of lateral and top-down features at each Feature Pyramid Network merge point. A global-average-pooling layer maps encoder features to a fixed 4-dimensional quantum input, decoupling the 72-parameter quantum budget from backbone size and image resolution. The method is evaluated on the 2018 TGS Salt Identification Challenge using 4,000 seismic images at 101 x 101 resolution, across two integration topologies, eight circuit variants, and six encoders with 8M to 118M parameters under five-fold cross-validation. In a controlled EfficientNetV2-L ablation at 256 x 256 resolution, replacing the three Quantum FPN Gates with element-wise addition while holding the encoder, loss schedule, splits, and threshold search fixed reduces mean IoU from 0.9389 to 0.8404, a 9.85 percentage-point gap. Inserting the same circuit as skip-connection attention in a custom U-Net improves IoU by 0.88 points over the SolidUNet baseline, showing that the PQC contribution depends on where and what it gates. These results provide controlled evidence that quantum feature fusion can improve dense seismic segmentation.

Taha Gharaibeh, Jyotsna Sharma

Louisiana State University Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA

Image Segmentation Hybrid Quantum-Classical ML Multi-Scale Feature Fusion Semantic Segmentation Quantum Neural Networks Seismic Imaging

May 14, 2026

Deciphering Neural Reparameterized Full-Waveform Inversion with Neural Sensitivity Kernel and Wave Tangent Kernel

Full-waveform inversion (FWI) estimates unknown parameters in the wave equation from limited boundary measurements. Recent advances in neural reparameterized FWI (NeurFWI) demonstrate that representing the parameters using a neural network can reduce the reliance on the high-quality initial model and wavefield data, at the cost of slow high-resolution convergence. However, its underlying theoretical mechanism remains unclear. In this study, we establish the neural sensitivity kernel (NSK) and the wave tangent kernel (WTK) to analyze their convergence behavior from both model and data domains. These theoretical frameworks show that the neural tangent kernel (NTK) induced by neural representation adaptively modulates the original sensitivity and wave tangent kernels. This modulation leads to several key outcomes, i.e., the spectral filtering effect, the gradient wavenumber modulation, and the wave frequency bias, connecting the convergence behavior of NeurFWI with the eigen-structures of NSK and WTK. Building on these insights, we propose several enhanced NeurFWI methods with tailored eigen-structures in NSK and WTK to improve inversion performances and efficiency. We numerically validate these theoretical claims and the proposed methods in seismic exploration, and firstly extend their application to medical imaging.

Ruihua Chen, Yisi Luo, Bangyu Wu +2

School of Mathematics and Statistics, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, Shaanxi 710049, China · School of Mathematics and Statistics, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, Shaanxi, China · School of Mathematical Sciences, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu 610000, China

Seismic Imaging Neural Tangent Kernel Inverse Problems Image Inverse Problems

May 11, 2026

Total Generalized Variation regularization closes the gap between neural-eld and classical methods in seismic travel-time tomography

Travel-time tomography forces a trade-off between mesh resolution and stability in which the regularizer choice dominates what can be recovered. We introduce MIMIR, a differentiable framework that represents the 2D velocity field as a Fourier-feature neural network, replacing the grid-based slowness vector with a continuous, infinitely differentiable function. Prior neural-field tomography has staircased smooth fields under total-variation (TV) priors or oscillated near interfaces under

L^2

Laplacian smoothing. We adopt second-order total generalized variation (TGV

^2

) and parametrize its auxiliary vector field as a second neural network jointly optimized with the velocity field, eliminating the inner Chambolle-Pock primal-dual loop that classically dominates TGV computation. On three synthetic benchmarks (Gaussian, horizontally layered, curved-fault inspired by OpenFWI) using cross-well acquisition, 5% travel-time noise, and five seeds, MIMIR-TGV

^2

ties a classical FMM-LSMR baseline with auto-tuned hyperparameters on the Gaussian (

p=0.134

, paired

t

-test) and significantly outperforms it on layered (

p<0.0001

, 44% RMSE reduction) and curved-fault (

p=0.0002

, 33% reduction). Replacing TGV

^2

with TV degrades performance on Gaussian (

p=0.004

) and layered (

p=0.003

); curriculum-annealed TV improves Gaussian RMSE by only 5.4%, confirming that TV's staircase bias is intrinsic to the regularizer rather than a scheduling artifact. The results empirically validate the Bredies-Kunisch-Pock prediction that piecewise-affine priors are better suited to subsurface velocity recovery than piecewise-constant TV priors. We argue that the central design choice in physics-informed neural-field inversion is not the network architecture but the regularizer. The full pipeline reproduces in under one hour on consumer hardware.

Isao Kurosawa

IVXA, Japan.

Seismology PDE Inverse Problems Inverse Problems Seismic Imaging

Mar 31, 2026

SAGE: Subsurface AI-driven Geostatistical Extraction with proxy posterior

Recent advances in generative networks have enabled new approaches to subsurface velocity model synthesis, offering a compelling alternative to traditional methods such as Full Waveform Inversion. However, these approaches predominantly rely on the availability of large-scale datasets of high-quality, geologically realistic subsurface velocity models, which are often difficult to obtain in practice. We introduce SAGE, a novel framework for statistically consistent proxy velocity generation from incomplete observations, specifically sparse well logs and migrated seismic images. During training, SAGE learns a proxy posterior over velocity models conditioned on both modalities (wells and seismic); at inference, it produces full-resolution velocity fields conditioned solely on migrated images, with well information implicitly encoded in the learned distribution. This enables the generation of geologically plausible and statistically accurate velocity realizations. We validate SAGE on both synthetic and field datasets, demonstrating its ability to capture complex subsurface variability under limited observational constraints. Furthermore, samples drawn from the learned proxy distribution can be leveraged to train downstream networks, supporting inversion workflows. Overall, SAGE provides a scalable and data-efficient pathway toward learning geological proxy posterior for seismic imaging and inversion. Repo link: https://github.com/slimgroup/SAGE.

Huseyin Tuna Erdinc, Ipsita Bhar, Rafael Orozco +2

Georgia Institute of Technology · Oxy · Huber Engineered Materials

Seismology Conditional Generative Modeling Seismic Imaging Inverse Problems

Mar 24, 2026

SIGMA: A Physics-Based Benchmark for Gas Chimney Understanding in Seismic Images

Seismic images reconstruct subsurface reflectivity from field recordings, guiding exploration and reservoir monitoring. Gas chimneys are vertical anomalies caused by subsurface fluid migration. Understanding these phenomena is crucial for assessing hydrocarbon potential and avoiding drilling hazards. However, accurate detection is challenging due to strong seismic attenuation and scattering. Traditional physics-based methods are computationally expensive and sensitive to model errors, while deep learning offers efficient alternatives, yet lacks labeled datasets. In this work, we introduce SIGMA, a new physics-based dataset for gas chimney understanding in seismic images, featuring (i) pixel-level gas-chimney mask for detection and (ii) paired degraded and ground-truth image for enhancement. We employed physics-based methods that cover a wide range of geological settings and data acquisition conditions. Comprehensive experiments demonstrate that SIGMA serves as a challenging benchmark for gas chimney interpretation and benefits general seismic understanding.

Bao Truong, Quang Nguyen, Baoru Huang +6

FPT Software AI Center · University of Liverpool · Imperial College London +2

Seismic Imaging Image Enhancement Semantic Segmentation

Mar 16, 2026

Seismic full-waveform inversion based on a physics-driven generative adversarial network

Objectives: Full-waveform inversion (FWI) is a high-resolution geophysical imaging technique that reconstructs subsurface velocity models by iteratively minimizing the misfit between predicted and observed seismic data. However, under complex geological conditions, conventional FWI suffers from strong dependence on the initial model and tends to produce unstable results when the data are sparse or contaminated by noise. Methods: To address these limitations, this paper proposes a physics-driven generative adversarial network-based full-waveform inversion method. The proposed approach integrates the data-driven capability of deep neural networks with the physical constraints imposed by the seismic wave equation, and employs adversarial training through a discriminator to enhance the stability and robustness of the inversion results. Results: Experimental results on two representative benchmark geological models demonstrate that the proposed method can effectively recover complex velocity structures and achieves superior performance in terms of structural similarity (SSIM) and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Conclusions: This method provides a promising solution for alleviating the initial-model dependence in full-waveform inversion and shows strong potential for practical applications.

Xinyi Zhang, Caiyun Liu, Jie Xiong +1

School of Electronic Information and Electrical Engineering, Yangtze University Jingzhou, Hubei 434023, P.R.China

Seismic Imaging Inverse Problems Image Inverse Problems Generative Adversarial Networks Physics-Informed Generative Modeling