Controlled-source interferometric redatuming by crosscorrelation and multidimensional deconvolution in elastic media

Abstract

Various researchers have shown that accurate redatuming of controlled seismic sources to downhole receiver locations can be achieved without requiring a velocity model. By placing receivers in a horizontal or deviated well and turning them into virtual sources, accurate images can be obtained even below a complex near-subsurface. Examples include controlled-source interferometry and the virtual-source method, both based on crosscorrelated signals at two downhole receiver locations, stacked over source locations at the surface. Because the required redatuming operators are taken directly from the data, even multiple scattered waveforms can be focused at the virtual-source location, and accurate redatuming can be achieved. To reach such precision in a solid earth, representations for elastic wave propagation that require multicomponent sources and receivers must be implemented. Wavefield decomposition prior to crosscorrelation allows us to enforce virtual sources to radiate only downward or only upward. Virtual-source focusing and undesired multiples from the overburden can be diagnosed with the interferometric point-spread function (PSF), which can be obtained directly from the data if an array of subsurface receivers is deployed. The quality of retrieved responses can be improved by filtering with the inverse of the PSF, a methodology referred to as multidimensional deconvolution.