Marine guided waves: Subbottom property estimation and filtering using physical modeling data

Abstract

Marine guided waves are strongly dispersive and commonly observed in seismic surveys worldwide in areas of shallow water with a hard seafloor. They are energetic and can obscure deeper reflection signals. We have conducted several ultrasonic physical modeling experiments to observe marine guided waves. The guided-wave dispersion curves from these surveys fit theoretical calculations very well. We next developed a new method to extract the subbottom S-wave velocity and density from water column guided waves using least-squares inversion. We have also developed a dispersion-curve filter, in the velocity-frequency domain, to attenuate the guided waves. We then applied these techniques to the physical modeling data, which have different water depths and different subbottom materials. The extracted results (S-wave velocity, density, and water depth) match the actual values well. The dispersion-domain filter clarifies reflections by attenuating the guided waves, which benefits further processing and interpretation.