Deep-learning techniques appear to be poised to play very important roles in our processing flows for inversion and interpretation of seismic data. The most successful seismic applications of these complex pattern-identifying networks will, presumably, be those that also leverage the deterministic physical models on which we normally base our seismic interpretations. If this is true, algorithms belonging to theory-guided data science, whose aim is roughly this, will have particular applicability in our field. We have developed a theory-designed recurrent neural network (RNN) that allows single- and multidimensional scalar acoustic seismic forward-modeling problems to be set up in terms of its forward propagation. We find that training such a network and updating its weights using measured seismic data then amounts to a solution of the seismic inverse problem and is equivalent to gradient-based seismic full-waveform inversion (FWI). By refining these RNNs in terms of optimization method and learning rate, comparisons are made between standard deep-learning optimization and nonlinear conjugate gradient and limited-memory Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno (L-BFGS) optimized algorithms. Our numerical analysis indicates that adaptive moment (or Adam) optimization with a learning rate set to match the magnitudes of standard FWI updates appears to produce the most stable and well-behaved waveform inversion results, which is reconfirmed by a multidimensional 2D Marmousi experiment. Future waveform RNNs, with additional degrees of freedom, may allow optimal wave propagation rules to be solved for at the same time as medium properties, reducing modeling errors.

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Internal multiple prediction remains a high-priority problem in seismic data processing, such as subsurface imaging and quantitative amplitude analysis and inversion, particularly in the common-midpoint (CMP) gathers, which contain multicoverage reflection information of the subsurface. Internal multiples, generated by unknown reflectors in complex environments, can be reconstructed with certain combinations of seismic reflection events using the inverse scattering series internal multiple prediction algorithm, which is usually applied to shot records in source–receiver coordinates. The computational overhead is one of the major challenges limiting the strength of the multidimensional implementation of the prediction algorithm, even in the coupled plane-wave domain. In this paper, we first comprehensively review the plane-wave domain inverse scattering series internal multiple prediction algorithm, and we propose a new scheme of achieving 2D multiple attenuation using a 1.5D prediction algorithm in the CMP domain, which significantly reduces the computational burden. Moreover, we quantify the difference in behavior of the 1.5D prediction algorithm for the shot/receiver and the CMP gathers on tilted strata. Numerical analysis of prediction errors shows that the 1.5D algorithm is more capable of handling dipping generators in the CMP domain than in the shot/receiver gathers, and it is able to predict the accredited traveltimes of internal multiples caused by dipping reflectors with small inclinations. For more complex cases with large inclination, using the 1.5D prediction algorithm, internal multiple predictions fail both in the CMP domain and in the shot/receiver gathers, which require the full 2D prediction algorithm. To attenuate internal multiples in the CMP gathers generated by large-dipping strata, a modified version is proposed based on the full 2D plane-wave domain internal multiple prediction algorithm. The results show that the traveltimes of internal multiples caused by dipping generators seen in the simple benchmark example are correctly predicted in the CMP domain using the modified 2D prediction algorithm.