| Abstract: | Three-dimensional seismic surveys, in general, do not need the same high degree of CDP coverage as 2-D surveys to achieve a certain signal-to-noise ratio after migration. This can be shown theoretically for Kirchhoff migration and laterally uncorrelated noise. More precisely, there exists a formal relationship between the multiplicity of CDP coverage of a 3-D survey and that of a 2-D survey with the same signal-to-uncorrelated-noise ratio. Frequency and aperture are parameters in the corresponding expression. Heuristically the relationship can be obtained by applying the concept of the Fresnel zone. Though the mathematics in this paper refer to laterally uncorrelated noise, the underlying concepts can probably also be used for weakly correlated noise, e.g., for multiple reflections and for the low-frequency remnants of surface waves. |
