Multiple Suppression in the t-x-p Domain

Shaunak Ghosh
The University of Texas at Austin

We propose a novel approach for suppression of multiples using the t-x-p domain, where p is the local slope of seismic events, and discuss the merits and demerits of this approach. We take CMP gathers and transform them from the original t-x space to the extended t-x-p space. We pick the velocities for primary reflections and form filters as functions that go to unity for primaries and zero for multiples. Multiplying the gather in the extended space by such filters and stacking along the p axis produces a gather with multiples suppressed. Synthetic and real data examples demonstrate the potential of the proposed approach.

Over the years many attempts have been made with varying degrees of success to attenuate multiple reflections. Some of the Radon transform methods face challenges when the water column is shallow and there is little difference in velocity between multiples and corresponding primaries. In addition, an invertible hyperbolic Radon transform can be computationally expensive. We introduce a novel approach to suppress multiples in seismic data using the t-x-p domain, where p is the local slope of seismic events. We show how CMP (common midpoint) gathers can be decomposed into the t-x-p domain and eventually into the t0-x-p domain and then demonstrate the potential of these domains for suppression of multiples by forming and applying filters that go to unity for primaries and zero for multiples and other noise components.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90182©2013 AAPG/SEG Student Expo, Houston, Texas, September 16-17, 2013