In conventional seismic processing, surface-related multiples are supposed to be removed prior to the migration in order to avoid cross-talk. This is mainly due to the fact that the forward model in conventional migration flows is designed for the primary wavefield. However, recently much more attention has been drawn to the possibility of utilizing surface multiples in seismic imaging, rather than removing them. This is mainly due to the fact that the multiples can be considered as secondary sources that illuminate the subsurface many times. Therefore, they have a significant potential to overcome the shortcomings of seismic acquisition by filling the illumination gaps resulting from imperfect acquisition, especially in sparse and NAZ acquisition geometries. In this abstract we have studied the migration of surface multiples in deepwater Ocean-Bottom Node (OBN) data from the Julia field in the Gulf of Mexico. We have considered two acquisition scenarios: one a small but dense patch of nodes, the other a sparse node geometry over a wide area. Our results from the migration of surface multiples show significant improvement compared to primary imaging, both in resolution and coverage especially in shallow sediments.
Presentation Date: Thursday, September 28, 2017
Start Time: 8:30 AM
Location: 361A
Presentation Type: ORAL
