Source signature determination by inversion

Abstract

A new method for estimating the pressure wavefield generated by a marine air‐gun array is presented. It is assumed that data is acquired at a ministreamer located below the source array. Effective source signatures for each air gun are estimated by an inversion algorithm. The forward modeling scheme used in the inversion algorithm is based upon a physical modeling of the air bubble generated by each air gun. This means that typical inversion parameters are: gun depths, empirical damping coefficients, and reflection coefficient of the sea surface. Variations in streamer depth are also taken into account by the inversion scheme. The algorithm has been successfully tested on examples with unknown streamer positions, gun parameters, reflection coefficient of sea surface, and ministreamer data contaminated with white noise.