I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Gerard T. Schuster, for his guidance, support and encouragement throughout my study at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. He taught me the in-depth understanding of geophysics theories as well as the methodology of scientific research. His passion and enthusiasm for research always encourage and inspire me during my program of study. I also wish thank other members of my advisory committee, Dr. Martin Mai, Dr. Shuyu Sun, and Dr. Ying Wu for reading and correcting this dissertation and the advisory of my research.
I also thank all of my CSIM colleagues for their help and discussions. The help from Dr. Chaiwoot Boonyasiriwat and Dr. Ola AlHagan is highly appreciated. I also enjoyed and benefited from the fruitful discussion with Yunsong Huang, Sanzong Zhang, Xin Wang and Ge Zhan.
I am very grateful for the financial support from the CSIM sponsors. I thank WesternGeco, Tullow Oil and Total for offering internships, from which I obtained industrial experiences. I'm in debt to Dr. John Doherty at Tullow Oil, Dr. Paul J. Fowler and Dr. Alfonso Gonzalez at WesternGeco, Dr. Paul Williamson, Dr. Fuchun Gao and Dr. Andreas Atle at Total for their guidance.
The support from computation facilities at the KAUST IT and Supercomputing Lab is also highly appreciated.