Suppression of high‐energy noise using an alternative stacking procedure

Abstract

Occasionally, seismic data contain transient noise that can range from being a nuisance to becoming intolerable when several seismic vessels try simultaneously to collect data in an area. The traditional approach to solving this problem has been to allocate time slots to the different acquisition crews; the procedure, although effective, is very expensive. In this paper a statistical method called “trimmed mean stack” is evaluated as a tool for reducing the detrimental effects of noise from interfering seismic crews. Synthetic data, as well as field data, are used to illustrate the efficacy of the technique. Although a conventional stack gives a marginally better signal‐to‐noise ratio (S/N) for data without interference noise, typical usage of the trimmed mean stack gives a reduced S/N equivalent to a fold reduction of about 1 or 2 percent. On the other hand, for a data set containing high‐energy transient noise, trimming produces stacked sections without visible high‐amplitude contaminating energy. Equivalent sections produced with conventional processing techniques would be totally unacceptable. The application of a trimming procedure could mean a significant reduction in the costs of data acquisition by allowing several seismic crews to work simultaneously.