News
Elementi – Spectral Element Method FWI making the complex clear
10 Apr 2025
We’re excited to introduce Elementi and the groundbreaking implementation of spectral-element method full waveform inversion (SEM FWI). With Elementi we’re exploring new ways to push the limits of subsurface imaging. Providing energy companies with the accuracy they need for the clearest understanding of what lies in the earth’s interior.Written by:
Mark Skinner, Global Head of Technical Business Development – Software, Processing & Imaging, Shearwater
Overcoming imaging challenges in subsurface exploration
Energy companies need accurate seismic data to understand the potential that lies in the subsurface. This helps them to de-risk exploration and optimise production.
While our clients objectives vary considerably, there are some geological features that always pose complexity when it comes to imaging of the subsurface. Frequent challenges include targets below and around rugose seafloors, mobilised salt or high-velocity carbonates. These make it challenging to model the earth properties and create accurate images.
To overcome some of the toughest challenges in imaging of the subsurface, geophysicists have adopted some key techniques to provide accuracy and reliability. Some of these techniques give greater resolution in imaging or migration of seismic data, and some are making use of inversion techniques to derive information about the subsurface from the data we record.
This has driven Shearwater to find a FWI solution that can match the way the real-world subsurface varies.
Pioneering subsurface imaging by leveraging the spectral element FWI method
With Elementi using the SEM FWI method, we are not restricted by the constraints that currently limit the industry in tackling these well-known challenges. Following our strategic collaboration and agreement with Mondaic, we’re moving beyond the FWI techniques currently on the market, providing energy companies with fundamentally more accurate images.
By leveraging SEM, Elementi will push the boundaries of seismic modelling and inversion to meet the demands of increasingly sophisticated problems in exploration geophysics, as well as emerging applications like monitoring of production or storage sites and high-resolution near-surface characterization.
Image: Unstructured mesh interface accurately modelled.
What’s ahead for you?
We are rolling out the technology in phases, starting with acoustic SEM modelling and FWI, and very soon after elastic FWI SEM. The technology will be tested with select clients in 2025 before making it widely available to all our clients during 2026. First as part of our processing and imaging services and then ultimately it will be made available to energy companies using Reveal, Shearwater’s industry leading processing and imaging software.
In the future we will add a lot more to Elementi, continuing to pioneer seismic imaging with development of multiparameter inversion and elastic FWI using full multicomponent wavefield information.
We are excited to advance seismic imaging together with our clients - making the complex clear.
About Elementi
Elementi implements the most advanced and state-of-the art Spectral Element wave-equation simulation for subsurface modelling and imaging. Key features of Elementi include:
- Ability to handle complex subsurface geometries, highly heterogenous material properties, and intricate fluid-solid boundaries.
- Supports unstructured meshes with adaptive mesh refinement based on local wavelength, ensuring computational resources are focused where they are most needed, reducing overhead without sacrificing resolution.
- Combining the integration of SEM with modern software-design to enable large-scale, high-performance wavefield simulations.
- GPU acceleration turbocharges performances, enabling scalable, highly parallel computations on modern hardware architectures.
- Will be part of the Reveal processing and imaging software.
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