The Center for Wave Phenomena (CWP) is a research center that collaborates with industry, government agencies and academic institutions to conduct leading research in seismic exploration, monitoring and wave propagation. Originally founded in 1983 by applied mathematicians, the CWP combines mathematical rigor and computational sophistication with realistic representation of subsurface formations. While subsurface imaging for exploration and production of hydrocarbons is an important focus of the CWP,  we also conduct research related to space, building stability and more. As a culturally diverse group of people with diverse research interests, our students and visitors have the freedom to choose research problems that suit them best. Financial support from and collaboration with our sponsors makes this experience possible.

The CWP is unparalleled in the breadth of its research program and has been instrumental in developing the foundation for such key seismic technologies as wave-equation-based imagery and tomography, inversion and processing for anisotropic media, and seismic interferometry. The range of topics in the current CWP research portfolio includes:

• elastic wavefield imaging and tomography,
• 3D acoustic/elastic wave propagation,
• novel acquisition methods using robotics and distributed acoustic sensing (DAS),
• quantification of uncertainty in seismic inversion,
• seismic interferometry,
• Marchenko imaging,
• anisotropic processing and 3D elastic inversion of microseismic data,
• waveform inversion for transversely isotropic and orthorhombic media, and
• anisotropic wave-equation velocity analysis.

The CWP’s industry consortium actively works on large-scale cluster and GPU computing.