Surface-Related Multiple Elimination Applications to an offshore

Australia data set

Andrew S. Long

Roald van Borselen

Leharne Fountain

PGS Seres AS, Australia

andrew.long@prth.pgs.com

PGS Seres AS, England

roald.van.borselen@london.pgs.com

PGS Seres AS, Australia

leharne.fountain@prth.pgs.com

SUMMARY
The presence of free-surface-related wave phenomena is a
classic problem in marine seismic data processing. Over
the years, the industry has relied heavily on conventional
multiple suppression methods such as predictive
deconvolution and differential move-out filtering to
remove surface-related multiples from marine seismic
data. These methods are based on rather specific
assumptions about the subsurface and characteristic
differences between primaries and multiples. Since these
assumptions are often not met in the field, the
effectiveness of these methods may be limited. SurfaceRelated Multiple Elimination (SRME) is a relatively new
method that removes all surface-related multiples,
without using any additional information about the
subsurface. Application of SRME to offshore Australia
data sets results in much improved results, where
relatively weak primary reflections become more
interpretable.
Key words: Multiples, autoconvolution, SRME.

INTRODUCTION
Removal of free-surface multiples from seismic reflection
data is an essential pre-processing step in seismic imaging in
offshore Western Australia. Due to the high velocity
contrasts at the water bottom, first layer multiples tend to
decay slowly and degrade the quality of a large part of the
seismogram severely. In addition, peg legs are generated off
structurally complex 3D sedimentary bodies to create a
complicated set of reverberations that can easily obscure
primary reflections from relatively weak sedimentary
reflectors.
In complex geological environments where primary/multiple
energy ratios are generally low, it is essential to employ
multiple elimination methods that require no a priori
information, either structural or material, about the
subsurface geology, and which leave unaffected all relevant
information present in the data.
Surface Related Multiple Elimination (SRME) removes all
multiples that are introduced by a particular surface in the
Earth. In order to remove these multiples, both the geometry
and the reflection coefficients at this surface need to be
known. Since this information is readily available for the
water surface, it is possible to remove all multiples that are
generated by the water surface, without using any additional
information about the subsurface. The method is fully data

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driven, meaning that only the data itself is used to predict the
multiples. As a result, user interaction is minimized.
In the following, we discuss the basic methodology of
SRME, and show some results of its application to a dataset
from the NW Shelf in offshore Western Australia.

SURFACE-RELATED MULTIPLE
ELIMINATION
Surface-related multiple elimination is applied in three steps
(Verschuur and Berkhout, 1997). The first step includes the
removal of all non-physical noise, regularisation of the
measured data to obtain a constant grid of sources and
receivers, the interpolation of missing near offsets and
missing intermediate offsets, and the removal of the direct
wave and its surface reflection. Since the method is datadriven, the quality of the data after multiple removal depends
heavily upon the pre-processed data.
The second step is the prediction of multiples. The
prediction is based on the observation that any surfacerelated multiple can be predicted through temporal and
spatial convolutions of the measured wavefield with itself
(Berkhout, 1982).
In the last step, the predicted multiples are subtracted from
the input data, using the minimum energy criterion, which
states that, after the subtraction of the multiples, the total
energy in the seismogram should be minimized.
For a long time, the SRME method has been considered to be
promising but too expensive and too difficult to run in
production processing. However, due to both increased
computer performance and increased understanding of the
crucial data preparation steps, the industry seems to be
moving towards a broader application of the method, and it
has even replaced more conventional methods in some
onboard processing projects.
Current acquisition configurations prohibit the application of
3D SRME. By assuming that no lateral variation occurs in
the cross-line direction, each individual streamer from a 3D
survey is assumed to pertain to a 2.5D configuration. After
an inline projection of each streamer, the 2D SRME method
can be applied. Small deviations from the 2.5D assumption
can be overcome in the adaptive subtraction process.
However, it is important to realize that most conventional
demultiple methods based on predictive deconvolution and
differential move-out filtering intrinsically assume localized
1D configurations, thereby ignoring any inline variation.

ASEG 15 Geophysical Conference and Exhibition, August 2001, Brisbane.

Extended Abstracts

SRME applications to Australian offshore data

RESULTS
SRME was applied to a 2D seismic line from the Carnarvon
Basin (NW Shelf area). Data from this area is known to be
severely contaminated with multiples that are generated by
near-surface carbonates. A very strong reflection coefficient
at the top and bottom of the carbonates results in a strong
surface multiple problem, and strong interbed multiples are
also a severe problem. Removal of multiple energy remains
the foremost obstacle to successful seismic imaging in
offshore Western Australia.
The full mechanism for
generating the multiple wavefield has never been properly
determined, nor has a satisfactory means been developed to
remove the multiples. The water bottom in the survey area is
very shallow (75 m), resulting in a strong train of short
period multiple energy (refer to Figure 1). Event amplitudes
are characteristically strongest at the near- to mid-offsets.
The following pre-processing steps were applied: Muting of
the direct arrival and its surface reflection, removal of
refracted wavefields, wavefield regularization, anti-aliasing
filtering and near offset interpolation.

Long et al.

Application of the method to a dataset from the NW Shelf,

offshore Australia with SRME leads to satisfactory results: A
significant reduction of multiple energy is obtained and
relatively weak primary reflections become more
interpretable.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors thank PGS Australia Pty. Ltd. for permission to
publish these results.
REFERENCES
Berkhout, A. J., 1982, Seismic Migration, Imaging of
acoustic energy by wavefield extrapolation, vol. 14A:
Theoretical aspects, Elsevier, Amsterdam.
Verschuur, D. J., and Berkhout, A. J., 1997, Estimation of
multiple scattering by iterative inversion, Part II: Practical
aspects and examples: Geophysics 62, 1596-1611.

A single shot gather from the first line is shown in Figure 1.

The raw shot is shown in (a), the multiples predicted by
SRME in (b), the result after subtraction of the predicted
multiples in (c), and the difference before and after
subtraction is shown in (d). The improvement in data quality
after SRME has been applied is easily observed. For
example, the reflector at 1.8 s TWT becomes more prominent
after SRME has been applied (annotated on Figure 1).
Autocorrelations of a single shot gather, both before and after
the application of SRME, are illustrated in Figure 2. Note
again the strong reduction of multiple energy.
Figures 3a and 3b show the stacked sections of the raw data,
and after SRME respectively. Note the significant reduction
of multiple energy in the target area at about 1.8 s TWT, and
the corresponding improvement in the strength and
continuity of the primary reflectors. Figure 3c shows the
same stack processed through a Tau-P deconvolution and
radon demultiple process for comparison purposes.
Examination of the different results indicates that SRME
yields improved primary event strength and continuity for all
arrival times, and the stack has an overall reduction in high
frequency noise. Artifacts associated with the subtraction
process appear to be negligible.
Note that the Tau-P deconvolution and radon demultiple
method was computationally more expensive, and parameter
testing for deconvolution and radon demultiple was quite
time consuming. In contrast, little paramateriztion testing is
required for SRME. Furthermore, the preservation of
amplitudes for all offsets is superior with SRME.

CONCLUSIONS
Computational advances and increased understanding of the
crucial preparation steps are responsible for an increased
interest in the application of the SRME method to large 3D
data volumes. SRME requires no a priori information about
the subsurface, and as such it is fully data-driven. As a
result, very limited user interaction is needed.

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ASEG 15 Geophysical Conference and Exhibition, August 2001, Brisbane.

Extended Abstracts

SRME applications to Australian offshore data

Long et al.

(a)

(b)

(c)

(d)

Figure 1. A single shot gather from a 2D dataset in the Carnarvon Basin, NW Shelf Australia. The raw shot is shown in (a).
Multiples predicted from the raw gather by SRME are shown in (b). The shot gather after the predicted multiples have been
subtracted is shown in (c). Note the improved strength of primary events (arrow). The gather depicted in (d) is the difference
between (a) and (c).

Figure 2. Autocorrelations of a single shot gather from 2D data shown in Figure 1. The autocorrelation of the raw shot is
shown on the left. The autocorrelation of the same shot after SRME is shown on the right. The ringing at near offsets evident
in the raw shot has been eliminated by SRME.

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ASEG 15 Geophysical Conference and Exhibition, August 2001, Brisbane.

Extended Abstracts

SRME applications to Australian offshore data

Long et al.

(a)

(b)

(c)

Figure 3. Stacked sections of 2D data from the NW Shelf, offshore Western Australia. The raw stack is shown in (a) and the
stack after SRME has been applied is shown in (b). For comparison purposes, the stack after Tau-P deconvolution and radon
demultiple is shown in (c).

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ASEG 15 Geophysical Conference and Exhibition, August 2001, Brisbane.

Extended Abstracts