A low-frequency deghosting method: Analysis and numerical tests

Abstract

The low-frequency component of seismic data can be beneficial for several reasons: improved signal penetration into the earth, enhanced resolution, and better constrained inversion results. We have developed a detailed analysis of a deghosting solution for the low-frequency spectrum of marine seismic pressure data. The advantages of this low-frequency deghosting method are: (1) it can be applied in the spatial domain, (2) it is applicable for horizontal streamers and for streamers with a mild depth variation, and (3) it is a fast-track solution that can be used flexibly as a preprocessing, or premigration step. The disadvantages of this method are: (1) it is an approximation to the full-deghosting operator and cannot infill the ghost notches of the spectrum, except near 0 Hz, and (2) it has decreasing effectiveness with a larger source/receiver depth. Numerical tests on the synthetic and field data sets indicate that this method is promising in deghosting data, up to at least half the frequency of the first nonzero ghost notch.