SHORT BIO

Jean Virieux, Emeritus Professor at the Université Grenoble-Alpes and former professor at the Institut Universitaire de France, is a seismologist working at the Institut des Sciences de la Terre (ISTerre). He has a PhD degree on "Earthquakes: rupture and waves" in 1986 at the University Denis Diderot-Paris. His research is oriented to seismic wave propagation modeling through field experiments and theoretical modeling in heterogeneous media. An efficient finite difference algorithm has allowed him to perform one of the very first 2D full waveform inversion with O. Gauthier and A. Tarantola in the mid-eighties. He has developed with V. Farra and R. Madariaga asymptotic modeling using Hamiltonian formulation. Efficient ray tracing algorithms has allowed waveform backprojection with real data at the beginning of nineties with G. Lambaré and S. Jin. Concerned by the reconstruction of other parameters as quality factor using waveforms with A. Ribodetti, he has taken benefit of the dramatically increase of computer power for restarting finite difference investigation of the wave propagation at the beginning of this century with B. Hustedt and S. Operto. With S. Operto, a consortium has been launched in 2006 devoted to full waveform inversion which is now led by Romain Brossier and Ludovic Métivier. Quantitative high-resolution imaging of physical parameters for improved interpretation is the scientific objective of this consortium SEISCOPE.