PS imaging of ocean-bottom data

Abstract

Opportunities and challenges exist for imaging seismic data acquired using conventional marine sources and receivers on the seafloor. Compared with conventional imaging of sea-surface streamer data, seabed acquisition and processing offer some opportunities to provide higher value of information. One of the opportunities is to use P-wave to S-wave converted reflection energy (PS imaging). Challenges include overcoming the effects of current seafloor receiver spacing, which can be large enough to negate the promised resolution gains and complicate the velocity model-building workflow. A synthetic data set illustrates possible imaging improvements that can result from seafloor acquisition as well as image degradation that can result when seafloor receivers are separated by typical current distances.