How rough sea affects marine seismic data and deghosting procedures

Most seismic processing algorithms generally consider the sea surface as a flat reflector. However, acquisition of marine seismic data often takes place in weather conditions where this approximation is inaccurate. The distortion in the seismic wavelet introduced by the rough sea may influence (for example) deghosting results, as deghosting operators are typically recursive and sensitive to the changes in the seismic signal. In this paper, we study the effect of sea surface roughness on conventional (5–160 Hz) and ultra‐high‐resolution (200–3500 Hz) single‐component towed‐streamer data. To this end, we numerically simulate reflections from a rough sea surface using the Kirchhoff approximation. Our modelling demonstrates that for conventional seismic frequency band sea roughness can distort results of standard one‐dimensional and two‐dimensional deterministic deghosting. To mitigate this effect, we introduce regularisation and optimisation based on the minimum‐energy criterion and show that this improves the processing output significantly. Analysis of ultra‐high‐resolution field data in conjunction with modelling shows that even relatively calm sea state (i.e., 15 cm wave height) introduces significant changes in the seismic signal for ultra‐high‐frequency band. These changes in amplitude and arrival time may degrade the results of deghosting. Using the field dataset, we show how the minimum‐energy optimisation of deghosting parameters improves the processing result.     

基于波动方程的上下缆地震数据鬼波压制方法研究

本文发展基于波动方程的上下缆鬼波压制方法,推导了上下缆地震波场频率波数域波动方程延拓合并公式.基于Fourier变换的波场解析延拓确保上下缆资料振幅相位的一致性,消除了长拖缆远偏移距信号的计算误差,同时具有较高的计算效率;上下缆地震波场的波动方程法合并有效解偶鬼波干涉,实现综合利用上下缆地震数据压制鬼波.理论模型数据和实际采集地震数据的测试表明了方法的有效性.     

Rough seas and time-lapse seismic

Time‐lapse seismic surveying has become an accepted tool for reservoir monitoring applications, thus placing a high premium on data repeatability. One factor affecting data repeatability is the influence of the rough sea‐surface on the ghost reflection and the resulting seismic wavelets of the sources and receivers. During data analysis, the sea‐surface is normally assumed to be stationary and, indeed, to be flat. The non‐flatness of the sea‐surface introduces amplitude and phase perturbations to the source and receiver responses and these can affect the time‐lapse image. We simulated the influence of rough sea‐surfaces on seismic data acquisition. For a typical seismic line with a 48‐fold stack, a 2‐m significant‐wave‐height sea introduces RMS errors of about 5–10% into the stacked data. This level of error is probably not important for structural imaging but could be significant for time‐lapse surveying when the expected difference anomaly is small. The errors are distributed differently for sources and receivers because of the different ways they are towed. Furthermore, the source wavelet is determined by the sea shape at the moment the shot is fired, whereas the receiver wavelet is time‐varying because the sea moves significantly during the seismic record.     

最小二乘反演迭代算法在压制海上变深度缆采集数据虚反射中的应用

海水面的虚反射(鬼波)引起海上拖缆采集数据陷波,导致地震记录频带变窄,而近年发展的变深度缆采集技术,具有多样的陷波特征,通过专门的去虚反射处理方法可获得宽频数据.本文基于已有研究成果,将最小二乘反演迭代压制虚反射算法应用于某海上变深度缆宽频处理.基于频率波数域镜像记录生成方法获得镜像炮集记录,并采用最小二乘解从变深度缆原始和镜像炮集记录中提取上行波.针对镜像炮集记录生成受初始速度模型精度的影响,使得某深度缆接收的上行波和下行波之间的实际延迟时间存在误差,采用最小二乘反演迭代算法最优化计算下行波与上行波之间的平均延迟时间和上行波记录,并采用时空数据窗口滑动克服延迟时间随炮检距和目的层深度变化问题.合成数据及某海上实际变深度缆数据处理测试结果表明,该方法能较好地压制变深度缆由海水面产生的虚反射,能达到拓宽地震记录频带目的.     

Rough seas and statistical deconvolution

The rough‐sea reflection‐response varies (1) along the streamer (2) from shot to shot and (3) with time along the seismic trace. The resulting error in seismic data can be important for time‐lapse imaging. One potential way of reducing the rough‐sea receiver error is to use conventional statistical deconvolution, but special care is needed in the choice of the design and application windows. The well‐known deconvolution problem associated with the non‐whiteness of the reflection series is exacerbated by the requirement of an unusually short design window – a requirement that is imposed by the non‐stationary nature of the rough‐sea receiver wavelet. For a synthetic rough‐sea data set, with a white 1D reflection series, the design window needs to be about 1000 ms long, with an application window about 400 ms long, centred within the design window. Although such a short design window allows the deconvolution operator to follow the time‐variation of the rough‐sea wavelet, it is likely to be too short to prevent the non‐whiteness of the geology from corrupting the operator when it is used on real data. If finely spatial‐sampled traces are available from the streamer, the design window can be extended to neighbouring traces, making use of the spatial correlations of the rough‐sea wavelet. For this ‘wave‐following’ approach to be fruitful, the wind (and hence the dominant wave direction) needs to be roughly along the line of the streamer.     

Noise transfer in variable‐depth streamer deghosting

Single‐component towed‐streamer marine data acquisition records the pressure variations of the upgoing compressional waves followed by the polarity‐reversed pressure variations of downgoing waves, creating sea‐surface ghost events in the data. The sea‐surface ghost for constant‐depth towed‐streamer marine data acquisition is usually characterised by a ghost operator acting on the upgoing waves, which can be formulated as a filtering process in the frequency–wavenumber domain. The deghosting operation, usually via the application of the inverse Wiener filter related to the ghost operator, acts on the signal as well as the noise. The noise power transfer into the deghosted data is proportional to the power spectrum of the inverse Wiener filter and is amplifying the noise strongly at the notch wavenumbers and frequencies of the ghost operator. For variable‐depth streamer acquisition, the sea‐surface ghost cannot be described any longer as a wavenumber–frequency operator but as a linear relationship between the wavenumber–frequency representation of the upgoing waves at the sea surface and the data in the space–frequency domain. In this article, we investigate how the application of the inverse process acts on noise. It turns out that the noise magnification is less severe with variable‐depth streamer data, as opposed to constant depth, and is inversely proportional to the local slant of the streamer. We support this statement via application of the deghosting process to real and numerical random noise. We also propose a more general concept of a wavenumber–frequency ghost power transfer function, applicable for variable‐depth streamer acquisition, and demonstrate that the inverse of the proposed variable‐depth ghost power transfer function can be used to approximately quantify the action of the variable‐depth streamer deghosting process on noise.     

频率慢度域自适应迭代反演算法压制海上倾斜缆鬼波方法及其应用

海上倾斜缆采集技术具有多样的陷波特征,通过去鬼波处理可获得宽频数据.针对海水面波浪起伏及缆深误差引起的鬼波延迟时间估计误差以及崎岖海底和目的层深度变化使得鬼波和一次反射波的振幅差异系数随偏移距的变化而难以给定一个固定值的问题,本文推导出频率慢度域中鬼波滤波算子以及自适应迭代反演求解上行波算法,该鬼波滤波算子与不同水平慢度对应的鬼波和一次反射波的振幅差异系数以及鬼波延迟时间有关.并基于计算出的理论下行波与实际下行波之间的平方误差最小理论实现自适应反演迭代最优计算该振幅差异系数和鬼波延迟时间.合成的及某海上采集的倾斜缆数据去鬼波处理结果表明,频率慢度域自适应迭代反演算法能较好地去除海上变深度缆鬼波,能达到拓宽地震记录频带目的.     

Directional statics in common reflection surface stack for rugged surface topography

Seismic data acquired along rugged topographic surfaces present well‐known problems in seismic imaging. In conventional seismic data processing, datum statics are approximated by the surface consistence assumption, which states that all seismic rays travel vertically in the top layer. Hence, the datum static for each single trace is constant. In case this assumption does not apply, non‐constant statics are required. The common reflection surface (CRS) stack for rugged surface topography provides the capability to deal with this non‐vertical static issue. It handles the surface elevation as a coordinate component and treats the elevation variation in the sense of directional datuming. In this paper I apply the CRS stack method to a synthetic data set that simulates the acquisition along an irregular surface topography. After the CRS stack, by means of the wavefield attributes, a simple algorithm for redatuming the CRS stack section to an arbitrarily chosen planar surface is performed. The redatumed section simulates a stack section whose acquisition surface is the chosen planar surface.     

Separation of P. and SV-wavefields from multi-componen seismic data

In multi-component seismic exploration, the horizontal and vertical components both contain P- and SV-waves. The P- and SV-wavefields in a seismic record can be separated by their horizontal and vertical displacements when upgoing P- and SV-waves arrive at the sea floor. If the sea floor P wave velocity, S wave velocity, and density are known, the separation can be achieved in ther-p domain. The separated wavefields are then transformed to the time domain. A method of separating P- and SV-wavefields is presented in this paper and used to effectively separate P- and SV-wavefields in synthetic and real data. The application to real data shows that this method is feasible and effective. It also can be used for free surface data.     

Fidelity and repeatability of wave fields reconstructed from multicomponent streamer data

Wave field reconstruction – the estimation of a three‐dimensional (3D) wave field representing upgoing, downgoing or the combined total pressure at an arbitrary point within a marine streamer array – is enabled by simultaneous measurements of the crossline and vertical components of particle acceleration in addition to pressure in a multicomponent marine streamer. We examine a repeated sail line of North Sea data acquired by a prototype multicomponent towed‐streamer array for both wave field reconstruction fidelity (or accuracy) and reconstruction repeatability. Data from six cables, finely sampled in‐line but spaced at 75 m crossline, are reconstructed and placed on a rectangular data grid uniformly spaced at 6.25 m in‐line and crossline. Benchmarks are generated using recorded pressure data and compared with wave fields reconstructed from pressure alone, and from combinations of pressure, crossline acceleration and vertical acceleration. We find that reconstruction using pressure and both crossline and vertical acceleration has excellent fidelity, recapturing highly aliased diffractions that are lost by interpolation of pressure‐only data. We model wave field reconstruction error as a linear function of distance from the nearest physical sensor and find, for this data set with some mismatched shot positions, that the reconstructed wave field error sensitivity to sensor mispositioning is one‐third that of the recorded wave field sensitivity. Multicomponent reconstruction is also more repeatable, outperforming single‐component reconstruction in which wave field mismatch correlates with geometry mismatch. We find that adequate repeatability may mask poor reconstruction fidelity and that aliased reconstructions will repeat if the survey geometry repeats. Although the multicomponent 3D data have only 500 m in‐line aperture, limiting the attenuation of non‐repeating multiples, the level of repeatability achieved is extremely encouraging compared to full‐aperture, pressure‐only, time‐lapse data sets at an equivalent stage of processing.     

A probabilistic model for ghost delay time estimation based on recording geometry

In order to deconvolve the ghost response from marine seismic data, an estimate of the ghost operator is required. Typically, this estimate is made using a model of in‐plane propagation, i.e., the ray path at the receiver falls in the vertical plane defined by the source and receiver locations. Unfortunately, this model breaks down when the source is in a crossline position relative to the receiver spread. In this situation, in‐plane signals can only exist in a small region of the signal cone. In this paper, we use Bayes' theory to model the posterior probability distribution functions for the vertical component of the ray vector given the known source–receiver azimuth and the measured inline component of the ray vector. This provides a model for the ghost delay time based on the acquisition geometry and the dip of the wave in the plane of the streamer. The model is fairly robust with regard to the prior assumptions and controlled by a single parameter that is related to the likelihood of in‐plane propagation. The expected values of the resulting distributions are consistent with the deterministic in‐plane model when in‐plane likelihood is high but valid everywhere in the signal cone. Relaxing the in‐plane likelihood to a reasonable degree radically simplifies the shape of the expected‐value surface, lending itself for use in deghosting algorithms. The model can also be extended to other plane‐wave processing problems such as interpolation.     

The impact of surface‐wave attenuation on 3‐D seismic survey design

Three‐dimensional seismic survey design should provide an acquisition geometry that enables imaging and amplitude‐versus‐offset applications of target reflectors with sufficient data quality under given economical and operational constraints. However, in land or shallow‐water environments, surface waves are often dominant in the seismic data. The effectiveness of surface‐wave separation or attenuation significantly affects the quality of the final result. Therefore, the need for surface‐wave attenuation imposes additional constraints on the acquisition geometry. Recently, we have proposed a method for surface‐wave attenuation that can better deal with aliased seismic data than classic methods such as slowness/velocity‐based filtering. Here, we investigate how surface‐wave attenuation affects the selection of survey parameters and the resulting data quality. To quantify the latter, we introduce a measure that represents the estimated signal‐to‐noise ratio between the desired subsurface signal and the surface waves that are deemed to be noise. In a case study, we applied surface‐wave attenuation and signal‐to‐noise ratio estimation to several data sets with different survey parameters. The spatial sampling intervals of the basic subset are the survey parameters that affect the performance of surface‐wave attenuation methods the most. Finer spatial sampling will reduce aliasing and make surface‐wave attenuation easier, resulting in better data quality until no further improvement is obtained. We observed this behaviour as a main trend that levels off at increasingly denser sampling. With our method, this trend curve lies at a considerably higher signal‐to‐noise ratio than with a classic filtering method. This means that we can obtain a much better data quality for given survey effort or the same data quality as with a conventional method at a lower cost.     

When 4D seismic is not applicable: Alternative monitoring scenarios for the Arab-D reservoir in the Ghawar Field

Ghawar, the largest oilfield in the world, produces oil from the Upper Jurassic Arab‐D carbonate reservoir. The high rigidity of the limestone–dolomite reservoir rock matrix and the small contrast between the elastic properties of the pore fluids, i.e. oil and water, are responsible for the weak 4D seismic effect due to oil production. A feasibility study was recently completed to quantify the 4D seismic response of reservoir saturation changes as brine replaced oil. The study consisted of analysing reservoir rock physics, petro‐acoustic data and seismic modelling. A seismic model of flow simulation using fluid substitution concluded that time‐lapse surface seismic or conventional 4D seismic is unlikely to detect the floodfront within the repeatability of surface seismic measurements. Thus, an alternative approach to 4D seismic for reservoir fluid monitoring is proposed. Permanent seismic sensors could be installed in a borehole and on the surface for passive monitoring of microseismic activity from reservoir pore‐pressure perturbations. Reservoir production and injection operations create these pressure or stress perturbations. Reservoir heterogeneities affecting the fluid flow could be mapped by recording the distribution of epicentre locations of these microseisms or small earthquakes. The permanent borehole sensors could also record repeated offset vertical seismic profiling surveys using a surface source at a fixed location to ensure repeatability. The repeated vertical seismic profiling could image the change in reservoir properties with production.     

Mitigating the effects of sand dunes on seismic data from the Rub al Khali basin,Saudi Arabia

The Rub Al Khali region in Saudi Arabia is characterized by the presence of sand dunes separated by salt flats, also called Sabkhas. In general, the elevation of dunes in this region varies between 90 and 250 m above sea level. The presence of these sand dunes, along with the rapidly changing surface topography poses challenges for seismic data acquisition and processing. The high contrast in acoustic impedance between the dune base and the underlying formation often results in amplification of seismic waves that are recorded at stations located on the surface of sand dunes. Attempts to address the issue using conventional surface-consistent amplitude scaling methods without reducing these amplification effects generally fail, thus compromising the suitability of the processed data for amplitude versus offset analysis. In this study, we propose a new reference site technique to reduce the effects of sand dune amplification, enabling the production of data sets that are suitable for amplitude versus offset processing. The proposed technique uses a deterministic approach to derive surface-consistent, frequency-dependent de-amplification functions for shots and stations located on the dunes only. Two-dimensional synthetic and field data examples show that the technique significantly reduces the effects of sand dune amplification.     

Quasi‐continuous reservoir monitoring with surface seismic data

We present an approach that creates the possibility of reservoir monitoring on a quasi‐continuous basis using surface seismic data. Current strategies and logistics for seismic data acquisition impose restrictions on the calendar‐time temporal resolution obtainable for a given surface‐seismic time‐lapse monitoring program. One factor that restricts the implementation of a quasi‐continuous monitoring program using conventional strategies is the time it takes to acquire a complete survey. Here quasi‐continuous monitoring describes the process of reservoir monitoring at short‐time intervals. Our approach circumvents the restriction by requiring only a subset of complete survey data each time an image of the reservoir is needed using surface seismic data. Ideally, the time interval between survey subset acquisitions should be short so that changes in the reservoir properties are small. The accumulated data acquired are used to estimate the unavailable data at the monitor survey time and the combined recorded and estimated data are used to produce an image of the subsurface for monitoring. We will illustrate the effectiveness of our approach using 2D and 3D synthetic seismic data and 3D field seismic data. We will explain the benefits and drawbacks of the proposed approach.     

基于格林函数理论的波场预测和鬼波压制方法

作为一种特殊的噪声,鬼波对一次波的波形及频带宽度产生极大的影响,鬼波压制是提高海上地震资料分辨率及保真度的重要因素.以格林公式为基础,详细论述了基于格林函数理论的鬼波压制方法,在不需要地下介质信息的条件下,进行地震数据驱动鬼波压制,并根据"Double Dirichlet"(双狄利克雷)边界条件,预测压力波场和垂直速度波场.建立了基于格林函数理论鬼波压制的处理流程,数值模拟和实际资料处理结果表明,基于格林函数理论鬼波压制方法在很好地去除鬼波的同时极大地拓宽了地震资料的频带,尤其提升了低频端能量,有利于后续资料的处理解释.     

Calibration of cross-line components for sea-bed 4C acquisition systems

Faithful recording of the elastic wavefield at the sea‐bed is required for quantitative applications of 4C seismic. The accuracy of the recorded vectorial wavefield depends on factors that vary from deployment to deployment. This paper focuses on one such factor: the interaction of the acquisition system with the sea‐bed, which is referred to here as coupling. We show, using multi‐azimuth data recorded with a cable‐based sea‐bed acquisition system, whose sensor housing is cylindrically shaped and with the in‐line geophone fixed to the cable, that coupling depends on the propagation direction and wave type (P‐ or S‐waves) of the incident wavefield. We show that coupling is more critical for S‐waves than for P‐waves. Detection of inconsistent coupling using both P‐ and S‐waves is therefore mandatory. A data‐driven processing method to compensate for the frequency‐dependent coupling response of the cross‐line geophone is derived. Its application to field data verifies the effectiveness of the method.     

LOW-FREQUENCY STANDARD HYDROPHONE * FOR CALIBRATING LINE HYDROPHONE ARRAYS (SEISMIC STREAMERS) AND MARINE SEISMIC SOURCES **

The design of a standard hydrophone with a maximally flat (Butterworth) response in the frequency range 8.0 Hz-1.0 kHz is described. The standard hydrophone has been developed primarily for calibrating line hydrophone arrays (seismic streamers) and marine seismic sources. The standard hydrophone has been used successfully during the past eight years for monitoring the output of a single air gun. It can be used for the calibration of a marine seismic streamer.     

Modeling the dynamic process of tsunami earthquake by liquid-solid coupling model

Tsunami induced by earthquake is an interaction problem between liquid and solid.Shallow-water wave equation is often used to modeling the tsunami,and the boundary or initial condition of the problem is determined by the displacement or velocity field from the earthquake under sea floor,usually no interaction between them is consid-ered in pure liquid model.In this study,the potential flow theory and the finite element method with the interaction between liquid and solid are employed to model the dynamic processes of the earthquake and tsunami.For model-ing the earthquake,firstly the initial stress field to generate the earthquake is set up,and then the occurrence of the earthquake is simulated by suddenly reducing the elastic material parameters inside the earthquake fault.It is dif-ferent from seismic dislocation theory in which the relative slip on the fault is specified in advance.The modeling results reveal that P,SP and the surface wave can be found at the sea surface besides the tsunami wave.The surface wave arrives at the distance of 600 km from the epicenter earlier than the tsunami 48 minutes,and its maximum amplitude is 0.55 m,which is 2 times as large as that of the sea floor.Tsunami warning information can be taken from the surface wave on the sea surface,which is much earlier than that obtained from the seismograph stations on land.The tsunami speed on the open sea with 3 km depth is 175.8 m/s,which is a little greater than that pre-dicted by long wave theory,(gh)1/2=171.5 m,and its wavelength and amplitude in average are 32 km and 2 m,respectively.After the tsunami propagates to the continental shelf,its speed and wavelength is reduced,but its amplitude become greater,especially,it can elevate up to 10 m and run 55 m forward in vertical and horizontal directions at sea shore,respectively.The maximum vertical accelerations at the epicenter on the sea surface and on the earthquake fault are 5.9 m/s2 and 16.5 m/s2,respectively,the later is 2.8 times the former,and therefore,sea water is a good shock     

RESEARCH ON TIME-DISTANCE INTERPRETATION OF MULTIPLES AND GHOSTS BASED ON MARINE SEISMIC DATA

Currently, the study on the active fault in the land areas is relatively mature, while there is still lack of detection and research on active faults in the sea areas. Marine exploration, which is different from land areas, has a prominent problem due to the existence of strong reflecting interfaces such as water surface and seafloor in the sea, thus the recording is often accompanied by interference of multiples on seafloor reflections. In addition, because of the characteristics of marine seismic exploration, the source exciting in the water and the geophone receiving in the water, ghost wave usually can be recorded simultaneously during the reflected wave propagation. This phenomenon makes it difficult to distinguish the effective waves and the noise, and has always plagued the data and seriously affects the quality of records. In the offshore and other regions of complex structures, such as inclined interfaces, it is difficult to eliminate the interference of multiples accurately by traditional multiples suppression methods, which are based on the horizontal interface assumption. This paper combines the sea area seismic data and its acquisition method, uses simplified model to simulate the multiples based on the time-distance analysis of multiples and their ghost wave in inclined interface. The time-distance characteristics of the multiples and their ghost waves from different interfaces(including the inclined interface)are obtained, and they are consistent with the actual records. The multiples time-distance simulation can help to distinguish the causes of reflected waves, summarize the multiple-wave time-distance characteristics from different interfaces(including inclined interfaces), and analyze the relationship between the characteristics of multiple waves and primary waves. In particular, this simulation has a significant effect on characterizing the internal multiples that are difficult to identify due to inconspicuous periodicity and the multiples of the inclined interface which present the phenomenon that the vertex of the time-distance curve is shifted. On this basis, relying on the time-distance analysis of ghost wave, we analyze the travel time difference characteristics between reflected waves and their accompanying ghost waves. The differences of the travel time characteristics of different orders ghost wave and reflected wave are summarized and the symmetry of the travel time difference between inclined interface and horizontal interface of ghost waves and reflected waves is analyzed. We simulate the distraction of the ghost wave event with the event of the reflected wave and analyze the influence of the ghost wave on the sea area seismic records. These results can improve the practical interpretation of seismic data. At last, the time-distance information is used to synthesize sea area seismic records, which can help us carry out the effective data processing and understand the characteristics of the time-distance and velocity of multiples in different interfaces and the layer artifact caused by multiples. This study combines the time-distance simulation of multiples and their ghost wave with conventional seismic data processing to analyze the pre-stack and post-stack features of multiple waves and their ghost waves in the seismic records of the sea area. The results of this study are conducive to the effective identification of multiples in seismic records in the sea, provide a theoretical basis for multi-wave suppression and prediction, and may facilitate the future study of sea-area seismic activity detection.