Surface‐related multiple elimination on land seismic data—Strategies via case studies

Abstract

Three processing strategies for the estimation and subsequent elimination of surface‐related multiple energy on land seismic data are presented. They can be applied in a prestack mode (to shot and common‐midpoint gathers) or in a poststack mode. The algorithm for the multiple attenuation is based on wave theoretical principles in which the data are used as a prediction operator. The estimated multiples are then adaptively subtracted from the input data to obtain primary‐only data. A processing step prior to applying multiple elimination is an important component of these methodologies, particularly in the prestack analysis. Its aim is to regularize the data, improve the S/N ratio, and balance the seismic amplitudes. This results in smooth prediction operators. The effectiveness of these schemes in suppressing multiples is demonstrated with a number of case studies involving processing land seismic data.