Interferometric interpolation of sparse marine data

We present the theory and numerical results for interferometrically interpolating 2D and 3D marine surface seismic profiles data. For the interpolation of seismic data we use the combination of a recorded Green's function and a model‐based Green's function for a water‐layer model. Synthetic (2D and 3D) and field (2D) results show that the seismic data with sparse receiver intervals can be accurately interpolated to smaller intervals using multiples in the data. An up‐ and downgoing separation of both recorded and model‐based Green's functions can help in minimizing artefacts in a virtual shot gather. If the up‐ and downgoing separation is not possible, noticeable artefacts will be generated in the virtual shot gather. As a partial remedy we iteratively use a non‐stationary 1D multi‐channel matching filter with the interpolated data. Results suggest that a sparse marine seismic survey can yield more information about reflectors if traces are interpolated by interferometry. Comparing our results to those of f‐k interpolation shows that the synthetic example gives comparable results while the field example shows better interpolation quality for the interferometric method.