Impacts of Acquisition Footprint Analysis on Thin Bed Edge Detection Attributes

Inanli, Burcin¹, Kurt Marfurt², and Bob Wiley^2
1 Thelen Associates Inc., Cincinnati, OH
² University of Houston, Houston, TX

Seismic data quality is impacted not only by fold, but also by the distribution of source-receiver offsets and azimuths that make up this fold. The impact of the seismic acquisition program on processing and on the quality of the final image is commonly called acquisition footprint. The seismic acquisition program impacts the quality of the subsurface image in several ways, the most fundamental of which is subsurface illumination. A more subtle impact of the seismic acquisition program, and the object of this work, is the variation of amplitude and signal to noise ratio as a function of illumination angle and the rejection of coherent noise.

The acquisition footprint signature of land acquisition program as well as obstacles is well known, through not necessarily well treated at this time. The impact of more recent advances in seismic acquisition, including using an increasing number of marine streamers, vertical cables, and ocean bottom cables are less well known. The impact of acquisition footprint on seismic attribute analysis has been barely addressed.

To understand the behaviors and impacts of different marine surveys on acquisition footprint analysis, I acquired 3-D multi-streamer marine data over a physical model made of simple homogenous and isotropic multi horizontal layers consisting of complex channel structures. In this work, not only the impacts of acquisition footprint on seismic attributes will be addressed, but also illumination of thin-bedded channel structures will be focused by employing conventional processing methods and suite of different migration algorithms.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90031©2004 AAPG Eastern Section Meeting, Columbus, Ohio, October 3-5, 2004